11-08-2011

Slovak documentary films will compete at Cinematik

    It is for the second time that within the IFF Cinematik a competition of Slovak feature-length (over 52-minutes) documentaries named Cinematik.doc takes place. 8 films released between September 2010 and September 2011 will compete for the Film Europe Award together with a financial bonus. The 6th annual IFF Cinematik will take place from September 9th to 15th in Piešťany.

    The festival is trying to pay more attention to the growing Slovak documentary cinema this way, to its thematic and formal diversity which is also proven by this year's collection. As in the previous year, the winner will be chosen by the young European film critics.

    Among the films that have already been awarded there is Erika Hníková's Matchmaking Mayor (Tagesspiel Award at Berlinale), a documentary about Zemplínske Hámre and its mayor who refuses to watch his village dying out; the last part of Matej Mináč trilogy about Nicholas Winter Nicky's Family (Audience Award at Karlovy Vary) and a portrait of an architect and "the father of Asian high-rises" Ladislav Hudec named The Man Who Changed Shanghai by Ladislav Kaboš (Igric award for documentary and creative bonus for film directing).

    The new Pavol Barabáš travel film Trou de Fer - The Iron Hole will be competing, too. This time the director has travelled to Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean where the unique canyon with almost untouched nature is situated. Three-week tour of Theatre from the Passage in the USA is portrayed in Adam Hanuljak's Protected Territory.

    The life of celebrated sculptor Franz Xaver Messerschmidt is illustrated in Peter Dimitrov dramatized documentary Time of Grimaces. The Whole World Is Narrow Bridge by Dušan Hudec presents Jossi Steiner who left for Israel after the World War II to return to Košice and to become "people's rabbi" there. The last competing film is The Baby Boom Generation at the Turning Point by Yvonne Vavrová about now 40-60-year-old people of baby boom generation and their place in today's society.

    The seminar focused onto documentary film and the possibilities of international cooperation will take place from September 9th to 10th in Piešťany, as well. Coproducing Documentaries in Europe is organized by the IFF Cinematik, European Documentary Network (EDN) and MEDIA Desk Slovakia.

    It is aimed primarily at producers from Slovakia and the neighboring countries and aims to introduce European possibilities for documentary film coproductions and European documentary film market. The individual consultations of selected projects with renowned international tutors Ove Rishøj Jensen (EDN), Peter Gottschalk (ARTE G.E.I.E.) and Stefan Kloos (Kloos & Co Medien, Germany) will be integral part of the seminar.

    The event is organized with financial support of the Slovak Audiovisual Fund.