Veteran Polish distributor Roman Gutek, creator and owner ofPolish arthouse distribution outfit Gutek Film, is to be awarded with France'sChevalier des Arts et Lettres, one of the country's highest cultural honoursfor promoting French culture in Poland.

Gutek establishedthe Warsaw Film Festival in 1985 and directed it until 1992. He was alsoone of the initiators and organisers of the French Film Festival in Warsaw aswell as many retrospectives of contemporary French cinema in Poland.

Gutek will receive the prestigious Chevalier des Arts etLettres award on June 23 at the residence of the French Ambassador in Warsaw.

French films recently distributed by Gutek Film, which thisyear celebrates its 10th anniversary, include Amelie and 8 Women, while its forthcoming releasesinclude Francoise Ozon's 5x2 andCatherine Breillat's Anatomy Of Hell.

Meanwhile, the Era New Horizons Film Festival's fourthedition will open with Pedro Almodovar 's BadEducation and run from July 22 to August 1 in Cieszyn, southern Poland.

The festival sold almost 56,000 tickets last year - becomingone of the leading new film events in Eastern Europe. This year Era NewHorizons is set to showcase 250 screenings of over 160 productions, mostly thelatest representations of auteur cinema from all around the world.

Among the highlights are many festival favourites, such asEmir Kusturica's Life Is A Miracle,Park Chan-wook's Old Boy, MarcoBellocchio's Buongiorno, Notte, KimKi-duk's Samaria, Alexander Sokurov'sFather And Son, Peter Greenaway's Tulse Luper Suitcases - Part I and II,Lars von Trier and Jorgen Leth's The FiveObstructions, Tsai Ming-liang's GoodBy, Dragon Inn and Mathew Barney's CremasterCycle.

The festival's competition consists of 18 director-drivenfilms including Guy Maddin's The SaddestMusic In The World, Aleksy German Jr.'s TheLast Train, Lee Kang-sheng's TheMissing, Alireza Amini's Tiny Snowflakes, Tomas Alfredson's Four Shades Of Brown and JenniferReeves' debut feature The Time We Killedas well as Hiroki Ryuichi's Vibrator.

The competition's Grand Prix is voted by the audience andwill be awarded to one film. In addition, and also decided by audience vote,one of the festival's organisers, Gutek Film, will guarantee distribution toseven other films throughout Poland.

Apart from the competition and panorama sections, thisyear's program includes a large focus on contemporary Korean cinema (20productions), retrospectives of Michelangelo Antonioni, Hungarian director BelaTarr and Polish maverick director Kazimierz Kutz who celebrates this year his75th birthday.

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