So is the Polish. And the Latvian. Then there's Bulgaria, Macedonia, Slovenia, Slovakia ... and the Czechs.

So why don't we ever see any of these films in Prague? For that matter, why don't audiences in Germany and the UK see more Czech films?

"The American films have 90 percent of Europe," says Sven Baldvinsson, writer of Iceland's award-winning 1997 film Tears of Stone. "What is that?"

That, as it happens, is precisely the challenge the Danish organization East of Eden has taken on. Having assembled writer-director-producer teams composed of some of the most talented young filmmakers in the former Eastern bloc, the organization just finished its third workshop in the rustic Czech town of Tábor, a former medieval stronghold of the Hussite armies.

The remoteness of the setting — though it's just 90 minutes by train from Prague — was no accident. "This way they can't disappear into the city somewhere hitting the bars," jokes Karen Lee Street, program manager for East of Eden.

The sessions were intensive, and by the end of the weeklong workshop ending Sept. 29, many participants had that slightly fried look about them. "It's necessary, though," says Michael Baumbruck, a Czech commercial director who was there to get feedback on a film proposal based on a script called The Shining World by Pavel Jech.

East of Eden is no workshop for bored housewives or trust-fund kids. Participants pay no fee and are chosen based on the merit of their project and its potential for reaching a European audience — that is, new ideas with universal appeal that can cross borders. Many have been struggling to get financing or development deals for their ideas for years.

"We're trying to get them to think internationally," says East of Eden director Anette Funch Thomassen.

Lars Herman, head of co-productions for the Danish company Nordisk Film, was there to coach the teams in producing. Like many of the heavy-hitters from the film industry of Western Europe or the United States who helped guide the teams, Herman says the freshness and energy of the aspiring filmmakers is energizing.

"I don't often get to meet the people just at the starting point," he says. "It's great for both sides."

Teams typically made up of one director, one screenwriter and one producer were assembled from different countries wherever possible, according to Thomassen, the idea being to get them to think beyond the film culture of their respective countries. That more-global approach is just what's needed, says Aneta Lesnikovska, a Macedonian writer/director who's going through East of Eden to develop her screenplay called (at last report) Does It Hurt: The First and Last Balkan Dogma. The script, which at the beginning of the week was simply called The First Balkan Dogma, parodies self-important, scheming filmmakers trying to emulate — and probably cash in on — the famed filmmaking philosophy of Lars von Trier, dedicated to stripping away all the artifice, such as artificial lighting, from film.

But "It's not a film about a film," says Lesnikovska. She made that discovery during intensive sessions with industry pros critiquing her script. After that, professional actors arrived from Ireland to perform some segments of the script in order to help her visualize it. Veteran Irish director Paddy Breathnach, the Czech Republic's Jan Sverák and Barry Hanson, producer of The Long Good Friday, joined the session to offer their expertise as well.