We start our list with the 51st New York International Film Festival (27. 9 - 13. 10. 2013), which has Agnieszka Holland’s three-part television film Burning Bush, which originated as a production from HBO and Nutprodukce and which is inspired by true events and real personalities from an important historical period of the former Czechoslovakia. The screenplay of this drama about Jan Palach’s alarming act, the fates of his loved ones and the beginnings of normalisation was written by Štěpán Hulík.
Burning Bush will also appear in the programme of Canada’s Vancouver International Film Festival (26.9 – 11.10.2013). Helena Třeštíková’s newest observational documentary, Vojta Lavička: Up and Down, which presents the past sixteen years in the life of the Romany musician, reporter and activist Vojta Lavička, will also have its international premiere there. Another feature film in this festival’s programme is Jan Hřebejk’s Honeymoon according to a screenplay by Petr Jarchovský, which takes place over the course of two days during a wedding celebration, where an uninvited guest unexpectedly appears and disrupts the romantic atmosphere of the celebration. Starring Aňa Geislerová and Stanislav Majer.
South Korea’s 18th annual Busan International Film Festival, which will be held on 3 – 12. 10. 2013, has several Czech films in its programme: It will be presenting the Slovak/Czech co-production film by Mira Fornay, My Dog Killer, in the Flash Forward section. The film, awarded the main prize at the 42nd annual IFF in Rotterdam, is the story about twenty-year-old Marek, a white skinhead, who has just one friend: his dog pitbull Killer, who he has trained for dog fights and for attacking “unwelcome persons.” The festival will also be presenting Jan Hřebejk’s Honeymoon in the World Cinema section.
The 57th BFI London Film Festival (9 – 20. 10. 2013) chose for its documentary competition the film Pipeline,in which director Vitaly Manskiy travels along the route of a gas pipeline to try to find out how the common people in its immediate vicinity live. In the Laugh section the festivalgoers will see another Slovak/Czech film, this time Matúš Vizár’sfirst animated film, Pandas, which follows this black and white animal’s game of life when exposed to the greedy and voyeuristic cravings of people, which go hand in hand with the human idea of the protection of animals and the diversity of the animal kingdom.
Another important American festival, the Chicago International Film Festival (10 – 24.10.2013),will be presenting Jiří Menzel’s film Don Juans (a comedy about love for music and women that takes place in a small Czech town where the opera troupe decides to put on Don Giovanni) in the World Cinema – Comedy Focus section. The Czech Film and Television Academy chose this film to battle for the upcoming Oscar awards.
Czech films of various genres have their greatest representation at the Warsaw International Film Festival, the 29th year of which will be taking place from 11 – 20. 10. 2013. The festival’s representatives have chosen Zdeněk Tyc’s psychological drama Like Never Before for its festival competition. It is an intimate film about the last days of a moderately successful artist who is dying in his house in the middle of the beautiful countryside from a serious illness. He leads a futile fight against death together with his partner and former lover, who provides him with company in the last days of his life. Starring Jiří Schmitzer, Petra Špalková and Taťjana Medvecká. Another film with Czech participation in international competition is an erotically tinged filmthat takes place in today’s Bucharest, A Very Unsettled Summer, which arose as a Romanian/Czech/Swedish/British co-production.
There are two Czech co-production titles in the Warsaw festival’s documentary competition:the documentary by the Polish director Krystyna Krauze, Return of Agnieszka H., in which she returns to the stormy youth of director Agnieszka Holland and portrays her relation to Czech culture in the 60’s and beyond and Normalization, a Slovak/Czech film about the right to justice, which is the eight-year detective work by Director Robert Kirchhoff which delved into the dark depths of the still-unresolved case of the kidnapping, rape and murder of a young medical student, heavily covered by the media.
In the Discoveries section the festival will be presenting Mira Fornay’s Slovak/Czech co-production film My Dog Killer and the animated film Pandas and short Fear made it to the short films competition, the latter a film by the renowned director of commercials, Martin Krejčí, who was inspired by a recent true story where an adolescent blamed his own serious accident on an attack by a group of Romany. It was no longer possible, however, to stop the chain of events when the truth came to light.
As part of the Family Cinema Weekend the festival will be showing the film Blue Tiger from director Petr Oukropec – an adventuresome, magical family comedy that draws the children and their parents into a fantasy world, set in a slightly forgotten, though still enchanting botanical garden hidden in the middle of a bustling city.
One of the most important documentary festivals, Germany’s DOC Leipzig (28.10 – 11. 11. 2013) will be presenting two of the aforementioned feature-length Czech documentaries: Pipeline from Vitaly Manskiy and Helena Třeštíková‘s Vojta Lavička: Up and Down.
Switzerland’s Shnit International Shortfilmfestival (2 – 6. 10. 2013), with an international competition, many special programmes and discussions, will be screening in its competition section the Czech short film Years by Ondřej Hudeček about a group of friends who regularly get together for a Sunday football match.
The famous children’s festival CINEKID (21 – 25. 10. 2013) in Amsterdam chose the short animation by Jakub Kouřil M.O. for its programme. It is the story of a lonely grandmother who orders a mechanical grandfather by mail to brighten her days.
Denmark’s East by SouthEast (24.10 – 7. 11. 2013) will be presenting the feature-length drama by Zdeněk Jiráský Flower Buds, which tells the story of the gradual disintegration of a family living in a small town. Each of the characters is living their ideal. Agáta longs for a happy life far from home, fully aware that escape is her only hope, Honza believes in the purity and strength of love regardless of the circumstances and Kamila is looking to the future for assurance. Only Jarda knows that he cannot change the world or himself and does not try to do anything. A genuine and convincing attempt to save the family comes when it was all too late. It is only just a futile gesture, a desperate convulsion.
Another Czech film at this festival has nine Czech Lion awards and won the Critics’ Award for 2012, David Ondříček’s In the Shadow, with Ivan Trojan in the starring role. This thrilling crime story takes place in the ‘50s in the former Czechoslovakia. Due to secret service’s machinations behind the scenes, a common heist in a jewellery store becomes a political scandal. Each of the players has their own shadow from the past, their weakness, which can make culprits out of the victims and heroes out of the culprits.
The Czech Film Center has cooperated with the CinEast film festival inLuxembourg (9 – 27. 10. 2013) in selecting and arranging the participation of Czech films. The festival’s objective is to present the multicultural Luxembourg public with fresh films from regions that would otherwise be represented very rarely in distribution. The following will be presented at the festival as part of the Czech collection of films: a mini-retrospective of director Alice Nellis (Some Secrets, Little Girl Blue, Mamas & Papas), Erika Hníková’s documentary The Beauty Exchange and the digitalised version of the film Marketa Lazarova by František Vláčil. The programme will also include the films Honeymoon by Jan Hřebejk, David Ondříček’s In the Shadow, Agnieszka Holland’s Burning Bush, the documentaries Fortress (Lukáš Kokeš and Klára Tasovská) and Generation Singles (Jana Počtová) and the classic film from the Czechoslovak new wave Before This Night Is Over by Peter Solan. The short films that will be presented are Tereza Dratvová, Born 1989 (Adam Sedlák), BKA 49-77 (Jan Pavlacký), In vino veritas (Aneta Kýrová Žabková), M.O. (Jakub Kouřil) and Pandas (Matúš Vizár). The film My Dog Killer (Mira Fornay) was chosen for the main competition.
Kontakt:
Denisa Štrbová, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., 221 105 321
