The 20th anniversary of IFF Prague – Febiofest will take place from March 14th to 22nd in Prague, with the main site at Cinestar Anděl. The complete program has been published today at www.febiofest.cz/en consisting of 190 films from 57 countries and divided into 23 program sections. Viewers can look forward to 544 screenings altogether (439 of them in Prague). The program of the accompanying Febiofest Music Festival is now available online as well.
The jury application deadline postponed
The deadline to apply to become one of the 33 members of the main jury of Febiofest is postponed till tomorrow, February 28th. The applicant registration is at http://www.febiofest.cz/en/jury. Festival's director, Fero Fenič, will choose 33 lucky fans out of the submitted applications, and the selected people will then see all 14 films of the competition program and award the Grand Prix.
Opening ceremony
The opening films of the festival will be Kon-Tiki, Gambit and Renoir, showed on the 14th of March at Cinestar Anděl on screens 9, 10, 11 and 12. The Norwegian film, Kon-Tiki, directed by J.Ronning and E.Sandberg, was produced by Jeremy Thomas and the film is a part of the Tribute to this guest of the festival. Before the screening, he will receive the Kristián award for his contribution to world cinema. The film maps the legendary voyage of Thor Heyerdahl from Peru to Polynesia, which he executed on a handmade raft in 1947. The visually captivating adventurous film was nominated for the Academy Award. Gambit is a new comedy with a script by the Coen Brothers, directed by Michael Hoffman. The drama about the life of Pierre-August Renoir discussing death, arthritic pains, war wounds and his last female inspiration was directed by Gilles Bourdos and premiered in Cannes. The first two films will be presented in collaboration with Bontonfilm, and Renoir in collaboration with Film Europe.
Made in USA
This section offers the selection of the best from last year's American production. You will find Robert Redford's latest masterpiece, thrillers by Brian De Palma and Steven Soderbergh, two black comedies – Stand-up Guys starring Al Pacino and Christopher Walken, and The Sessions, which was the audience favorite at last year's Sundance, a romantic comedy called See Girl Run, but also films such as Place Beyond the Pines, California Solo starring Robert Carlyle as an ex-rock star, or dramatic The Girl depicting life in the Mexican border area. This year's contribution to the excursion into the history of world cinema is a tribute to the icon of independence – Woody Allen.
World Cinema Panorama
The giants of the world cinematography meet again! The legends of Italian cinema, Bernardo Bertolucci and Marco Bellocchio; the key personalities of Scandinavian cinema – Lasse Hallström and Bille August; Jacques Audiard will represent contemporary French stars; and the leading personality of the new Romanian wave – Cristian Mungiu. However, you definitely shouldn't miss the seemingly unknown pictures that belong to the top choice of last year's festival season: The Horde by Russian director, Andrei Proshkin; Where the Fire Burns by İsmail Güneş from Turkey, or The Repentant in the Algerian-French co-production, directed by Merzak Allouache. Henrik Ruber Genz is a name not quite unknown to the Czech viewers. The winner of the Karlovy Vary 2008 Crystal Globe, which he received for his thriller, Terribly Happy, presents a black comedy this time, Excuse Me. A special part is devoted to an excursion to cinema's golden era – 40 years from the death of one of the most influential actresses of the Italian cinema, Anna Magnani, will be remembered by Bergman and Magnani: The War of Volcanoes, and a slightly forgotten yet still canonical film by Roberto Rossellini, L'Amore.
11 films from different sections of this year's selection of Febiofest will be distributed in the Czech cinemas by Film Europe!
The Guests of IFF Prague – Febiofest 2013
The following guests are coming to introduce their films. The list of stars and Kristians to be awarded will be completed at the press conference on the 11th of March.
Jeremy Thomas: producer – superstar
Jeremy Thomas (born 1949) is one of the most influential film producers worldwide. In almost 40 years, he has produced more than 50 films, number of which was praised by critics as well as the viewers, and he himself received the European Film Award for his contribution to world cinema in 2006. Bernard Bertolucci's The Last Emperor is one of his most successful films, winning 9 Academy Awards in 1988. Out of the number of exceptional films, let's mention Bad Timing by Nicolas Roeg, The Shout by Jerzy Skolimowski, Nagisa Oshima's Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, and A Dangerous Method directed by David Cronenberg. Moreover, he collaborated also with Takashi Miike or Takeshi Kitano.
Jeremy Thomas will receive the Kristian award for his Contribution to World Cinema at this year's Febiofest.
Richard Lester: the creator of Beatles’ films
Richard Lester (born 1932) is one of the most influential directors of the 1960s. Febiofest focuses on his older films; first with the famous comedian, Peter Sellers, and his colleagues from the radio comedy program, The Goon Show, considered to be the predecessor of Monty Python's Flying Circus, and later with the Beatles whose films (A Hard Day's Night, Help!) Lester directed. At that time, Lester had the reputation of being a non-conventional master comedian who intertwined loosely connected sketches full of absurd humour and frantic tempo. The frequent use of unrelated shots or alienating effects show Lester's inspiration by French new wave; later, his works eventually influenced the style of music videos. In the 1970s, Lester's names could be found in the credits of Hollywood blockbusters such as Superman I & II and The Three Musketeers
Richard Lester will receive the Kristian award for his Contribution to World Cinema at this year's Febiofest.
Ulrich Seidl: an uncompromising Austrian
Ulrich Seidl (born 1952) is one of the most distinctive contemporary directors in the world. He always describes his films as a staged reality, a combination of documentary and acting. He finds unpleasant truths about life in Central Europe as well as in intimate aspects of human lives which are often almost unbearable for the viewers: the fruitless search of love that is reduced to material needs (Loss Is To Be Expected; Paradise: Love), desire for wealth through one's own body (Models), or the forms of faith (Jesus, You Know). His uncompromising cinematic form and play with the awkward is also used in his feature films, such as Dog Days or Import/Export. In his latest trilogy, Paradise, the director follows the stories of three women who are trying to find their own form of happiness. The director finished the trilogy at the 2013 Berlinale with Paradise: Hope. The entire Paradise trilogy will be presented at Febiofest.
Ulrich Seidl is now preparing a film about Austrian basements, not surprisingly called In the Basement.
Jerzy Stuhr: Sexmission of moral concern
Jerzy Stuhr(born 1947) is a film and theatre actor, director, scriptwriter and teacher. He became the lead actor of the “cinema of moral concern”, collaborated with this movement's leading directors, and played the main characters in films such as Top Dog by Feliks Falk and Camera Buff by Krzysztof Kieślowski whose personality and works influenced him significantly. The second significant course of Stuhr's acting career make up his comical roles. One of the most famous is Sexmission, a Polish film comedy, directed by Juliusz Machulski. Jerzy Stuhr is also a scriptwriter and director, sometimes even of the films where he plays the lead role, such as Love Stories or Tomorrow's Weather. In 2005, he received the Robert Bresson award for his life work at Venice film festival. A part of the Tribute to Jerzy Stuhr is the Czech premiere of the newly restored Top Dog (1977), one of the most significant films of the “cinema of moral concerns”, directed by Feliks Falk, and the iconic comedy, Sexmission. The image and sound are in the original quality!
Jerzy Stuhr will receive the Kristian award for his Contribution to World Cinema.
Zdena Studenková: An ageless beauty from Slovakia
Zdena Studenková (born 1954) has been one of the most popular Slovak actresses for a long time. Her innocent face and fragile features destined her to play students (A Motive for Murder) or princesses (Beauty and the Beast). Eventually, she successfully also portrayed temperamental and experienced women, especially in the two films about a 1930s brothel – A Devil in Angel's Clothing and An Angel Seducing a Devil. A significant part of her filmography consists of numerous roles in TV productions inspired by famous literary works – such as The Misanthrope or Lady Chatterley's Lover.
Aku Louhimies: Finland painfully contemporary
Unlike his famous fellow countryman, Aki Kaurismäki, Aku Louhimies (born 1968) depicts the working class without any gloss in his pictures. There's no place for parables or old-fashioned grace: his dramas are always painfully contemporary and realistic. From the beginning, his films have addressed relationship and emotional problems. His first pictures bask in the sun of summer Helsinki, but the image of romantic love is in doubt even there. His later works focus on the lack of feelings and understanding of the Finnish society. Be it a mosaic of tales like Frozen Land or Naked Harbour, or analysis of one story only (Frozen City), the director depicts the essence of today's problems such as lack of work, but also lack of communication. Nevertheless, despite the direness of the topics, a tinge hope always appears in the films' background. The tribute to Aku Louhimies expands the wide Finnish retrospective of this year's festival. Our thanks for cooperation belong to the Finnish Embassy in Prague.
