* All filmmakers attending the International Film Festival Rotterdam are invited to a daily drink, organised from 5-6 PM in the top-floor foyer (second floor) of the Schouwburg. Be there!

* Indian director Shekhar Kapur, who attended Rotterdam in 1995 with his controversial Bandit Queen , is to direct Elizabeth I, based on the early life of the 16th-Century English royal. Michael Hirst is currently working with him on the script, with shooting scheduled for this summer. The film will mark Shapur's English language feature film debut.

* Sweden's Sandrews and Norway's Schibsted have entered the Finnish market, shortly to break Finnkino's monopoly-like reign of exhibition in the capital of Helsinki, where the local media concern controls more than 90% of the business.

Already collaborating on theatrical and video distribution in Scandinavia, they have set up a joint cinema venture, KinoPalatsi Sandrew-Metronome, with Jukka Vilhunen's Juvi Media and Claes Olsson's Kinoscreen, to be headed by Vilhunen.

In the centre of Helsinki the new company will change the Formia, a former Finnkino theatre with four screens, to the Kino Palatsi multiplex, investing FIM 15 million in a total refurbishment, adding six auditoria with technical equipment including THX sound.

Previouslyly controlled by Sandrews (50%), Schibsted (25%) and Denmark's Warner & Metronome (25%), Sandrews-Metronome Distribution came fully on Swedish and Norwegian hands last autumn, as Schibsted purchased Metronome with TeleDanmark.

With Bertil Sandgren as managing director, the company has successfully supplied Sandrews, Warner & Metronome and Norway's Norsk FilmDistribusjon with international product since 1990, most recently releasing New Line's Long Kiss Goodnight and Seven. JRJ

* Channel 4 chief executive Michael Grade (53) has agreed to pay some 100,000 to be released from his five-year contract.

Grade is to join his uncle's company First Leisure Corporation on 31 July 31 this year as executive chairman. LP

* UK specialist distributor Artificial Eye has ruled out acquiring TV rights to most foreign language films.

Arificial Eye topper Andi Engel blamed increasingly mainstream programming by UK broadcasters for the decision. "Television in my book doesn't play a part anymore," he said. "As far as subtitled films are concerned, all channels are 100% more mainstream now than five years ago."

Artificial Eye will now rely on its video arm to generate profits that, with UK base rentals at a mere 25%, are rarely forthcoming for UK distributors on just a theatrical release.

Engel said: "It just means in future when producers come and say, 'here, pay us a lot of money for the TV rights,' I will tell say to them, 'sell them yourselves. I will not play bank for you.' I have stopped doing that." AM

* James Bond will be back in the Royal Navy in the 18th 007 film adventure, on which filming is due to begin within the next two months.

The new film is to be shot in the UK, France and South-East Asia. A theatrical release is currently scheduled for the end of the year. LP