Roman Polanski Leaves Jail For 'Medical Attention'; Competing Fest Crows

Either Swiss doctors don't make house calls to jail or Roman Polanski needs a little more treatment for something other than depression: The 76-year-old filmmaker was temporarily sprung from his Zurich holding cell and moved to an undisclosed location over the weekend. Meanwhile, in a semi-related note, another film festival Polanski had declined to attend is taking advantage of the director's detention in Switzerland to pimp its fugitive-friendly brand.

Labina Mitevska -- the director of something called the "Manaki Brothers Intl. Cinematographer's Film Festival" in Bitola, Macedonia -- told Variety that his her organization had invited Polanski to attend its own event, where, as with the Zurich Fim Festival, he would be presented with a lifetime achievement award. Polanski reportedly declined the offer, begging off with too much work on his film The Ghost and proposing to attend another time. Maybe it happened like this, maybe it didn't, but Mitevska would just like everybody to know for future reference that Macedonia does not have an extradition treaty with the United States, and that Polanski should have thought twice about his destination. And anyway, doesn't everybody know better than to turn down the Manaki Bros.?

Meanwhile, from France, Polanski's lawyer provided no specifics to the press as to his client's condition, whereabouts or scheduled return to jail. He's probably balled up in some saddlebag on a trail halfway to Paris as we speak. You know how it goes. Developing...

· Polanski undergoing medical treatment: lawyer [Reuters]

· Polanski had offer from competing festival [Variety]