Cinema of Europe refers to the film industries and films produced in the continent of Europe. Some notable European film movements include German Expressionism, French Impressionist Cinema, Poetic realism, Italian neorealism, French New Wave, Polish Film School, New German Cinema, Portuguese Cinema Novo, Czechoslovak New Wave, Dogme 95, New French Extremity, and Romanian New Wave.

The European Film Academy founded in 1988 is annually celebrating the European Film Awards.

Europa Cinemas is a network of 1,036 cinemas in 588 cities and 60 countries. It was founded in 1992 and is part funded by the European Union MEDIA Programme and Euromed Audiovisual, the Council of Europe Eurimages fund as well as support from France's Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs and National Center of Cinematography and the moving image. The network provides operational and financial support to cinemas who commit to the screening of European films, increasing the circulation of European cinema and facilitating international projects and co-operation between cinemas.

Martin Charles Scorsese ( /skɔrˈsɛsɛ/; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation. He is a recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award for his contributions to the cinema, and has won Academy Award, Palme d'Or, Emmys, Golden Globes, BAFTAs, and DGA Awards.

Scorsese's body of work addresses such themes as Italian American identity, Roman Catholic concepts of guilt and redemption,machismo, modern crime, and violence. Scorsese is hailed as one of the most significant and influential filmmakers of all time, directing landmark films such as Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), and Goodfellas (1990) – all of which he collaborated on with actor and close friend Robert De Niro. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for The Departed (2006), having been nominated a previous five times.

Jan Gustaf Troell (born 23 July 1931) is a Swedish film director. Usually, Troell writes his own scripts and serves as his own director of photography. His realistic films, with a lyrical photography in which nature is prominent, have placed him in the first rank of modern Swedish film directors along with Ingmar Bergman and Bo Widerberg.

Troell was born in Limhamn outside Malmö, Sweden. For several years, he worked as an elementary-school teacher but started to make shorts films in the sixties. He became director of photography for Widerberg but soon made a debut with his own first feature, Here's Your Life (Här har du ditt liv, 1966), about a working class boy in Sweden, set in the beginning of the 20th century. The film was based upon an autobiographical novel by Eyvind Johnson. His next film Who Saw Him Die? (Ole dole doff, 1968) won the Golden Bear award at the 18th Berlin International Film Festival.

Troell's major work in the 1970s became The Emigrants (Utvandrarna, 1971) and its sequel The New Land (Nybyggarna, 1972), two epic films about some peasants emigrating from the barren Swedish countryside to America in the 19th century. Once again, Troell films were based upon the novels of a Swedish working-class author, in this case Vilhelm Moberg's famous Emigrants suite. As in many of Troell's films, Max von Sydow plays one of the major roles. The Emigrants was nominated for several Academy Awards.

 Mads Dittmann Mikkelsen (help·info) (born 22 November 1965) is a Danish actor. In May 2012, he won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival for his role in the film The Hunt.

Mikkelsen was born in the Østerbro area of Copenhagen, the son of Bente Christiansen and Henning Mikkelsen, a cab driver. He is the brother of actor Lars Mikkelsen. After attending Århus Theatre School, he made his film debut in the movie Pusher. He has starred in popular Danish movies such as Flickering Lights (Danish: Blinkende lygter), The Green Butchers (Danish: De grønne slagtere), Adam's Apples (Danish: Adams æbler), Valhalla Rising, his film debut Pusher, and Pusher II. Mikkelsen's longest running role was as a policeman in the Danish television series Unit One (Danish: Rejseholdet). He also starred as Tristan in the Jerry Bruckheimer production of King Arthur, as well as playing the villain Le Chiffre in the 2006 James Bond film, Casino Royale. Also in 2006 he took the lead role in the Oscar nominated After the Wedding (Danish: Efter brylluppet).

Emir Nemanja Kusturica (Serbian: Емир Немања Кустурица, Serbo-Croatian pronunciation: [ěmiːr nɛ̌maɲa kǔsturitsa]); born 24 November 1954 in Sarajevo) is a Serbian filmmaker, actor and musician, recognized for several internationally acclaimed feature films. He is a two-time winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes (for When Father Was Away on Business and Underground), as well as being a Commander of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Since the mid-2000s, Kusturica's primary residence is Drvengrad, a village in the Mokra Gora region of Serbia. He had portions of the historic village reconstructed for his film Life Is a Miracle.

Born to Murat Kusturica, a journalist employed at the Sarajevo's Secretariate of Information, and Senka Numankadić, a court secretary, Emir grew up as the only child of a secular family in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, then a constituent republic within Yugoslavia.

Emir was something of a delinquent while growing up in Sarajevo, according to his own account. Through his father's friendship with the well-known director Hajrudin "Šiba" Krvavac, 17-year-old Emir got a small part in Krvavac's 1972 Walter Defends Sarajevo, a partisan film funded by the Yugoslav state.