Eight Czech films in Hong Kong

24-03-2014

Eight Czech films in Hong Kong

…and many more in the spring international film festivals

Prague, 24 March 2014 – This March and April Czech films can look forward to abundant participation at international film festivals, both in competition programmes and as part of special programmes. These include the international film festivals in Sofia (6 - 30 March 2014) and Vilnius, Lithuania (20 March – 3 April 2014) as well as Germany’s goEast (9 - 15 April 2014), which specialises in films from Eastern and Central Europe. Student films will be presented at festivals in Belgium, Spain and Portugal, at festivals dedicated to short and animated films. The Hong Kong international film festival (24 March – 7 April) has a large and original presentation dedicated to Czech film in its official programme this year. This special programme, “Decades on the Road to Freedom – from Post-War History through Recent Czech Cinema”, which originated in cooperation with the Czech Film Center, will be introducing eight Czech feature films.

This year’s 38th annual Hong Kong International Film Festival (24 March – 7 April), which will be presenting more than 280 titles from 50 countries, will also be showing, as part of its official World Cinema section, a special programme dedicated to Czech cinematography entitled Decades on the Road to Freedom: Post-war History through Recent Czech Cinema, which the Czech Film Center is co-organizing and partially financing.

The conception of the programme was created by the American journalist and professor, the expert guest of the exhibition, Gabriel Paletz, who works at the private Prague Film School in the Czech Republic. His goal is to show the public the history and present day of our country through selected recently-made feature films that are thematically oriented on key historical events and social changes in the twentieth century. Each of the selected films takes place in a different decade of the 20th century and combine to create a historical chronicle from World War II until today.

The films document the state of society during the Nazi occupation (Marek Najbrt’s Protektor), the cruel and dismal fifties (David Ondříček’s In the Shadow), the temporary liberalisation of the sixties (Jan Hřebejk’s Cosy Dens), the renewal of repression in the period of normalisation during the seventies (Agnieszka Holland’s Burning Bush), the political tension of the eighties (Ondřej Trojan’s Identity Card and Radim Špaček’s Walking Too Fast), the explosion of capitalism in the nineties (Tomáš Řehořek’s Czech Made Man) and the coming to terms with the past in today’s society (Jan Hřebejk’s Honeymoon). The programme’s diverse genres include a tragicomedy, thriller, modern melodrama and new film noir.

Another festival that will be presenting a more extensive programme dedicated to Czech and Czechoslovak cinematography is the international film festival in Sofia, which will be held for the 18th time from 6 – 30 March 2014. In its retrospective programme entitled The Czechoslovak New Wave 1969 it presents eight films that were banned during the period of “normalization”. One of these was the renowned film Larks on a String from director Jiří Menzel, who was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Bulgarian National Film Academy (NATFIZ) in Sofia this year. Slovak director Dušan Hanák, whose debut, the psychological-social drama 322 launched the Czechoslovak retrospective, was granted the Award for Outstanding Contribution in Cinema by the Sofia festival.

The festival presented Agnieszka Holland’s feature film Burning Bush in the Cinema Today – Masters section. Documentaries filmed in foreign co-productions were also shown in the competition programme – Velvet Terrorists from directors Pavol Pekarčík, Ivan Ostrochovský and Peter Kerekesand Pipeline from directorVitaliy Manskiy.

The co-production market Sofia Meetings, meant for the presentation of the unrealised films of debut to third-time directors looking for international co-productions, takes place every year as part of the festival itself. The 11th year took place from 13 to 16 March of this year and one Slovak/Czech project with the working title COOK, F**K, KILL (FROGS WITH NO-TONGUES) from director Mira Fornay was presented among the twenty-five projects selected in three various programmes. It took away the prize from the Hungarian post-production studio FOCUSFOX STUDIO in the value of 10 000 EUROS for the best project in the “Plus Minus One Projects” programme for its presentation.

The 19th annual Lithuanian Film Festival in Vilnius (20 March – 3 April 2014) will be presenting the Slovak/Czech social drama Miracle in its “New Europe - New Names” competition programme“.The filmby Juraj Lehotský was part of the East of the West competition programme in last year’s Karlovy Vary festival. Another Slovak/Czech co-production film, the documentary Velvet Terrorists, will be shown in the “Critics’ Choice” section.

The following films were selected for the competition programme for short films: Martin Krejčí’s Little Secret, the film Dear Eva from Ziya Demirel and the short animated film Pandas by Matúš Vizár, which successfully represented Czech cinematography at many foreign festivals last year, particularly at the 2013 Cannes IFF in the Cinéfondation section.

Czech films are right at home in Germany’s Wiesbaden, at the 14th annual goEast festival (9 – 15 April 2014) oriented on films for Eastern and Central Europe. This year the festival will be presenting new films (the Slovak/Czech document Velvet Terrorists, the feature film The Godfather’s Story from Petr Nikolaev) as well as films from previous years (Vít Klusák’s documentary All for the Good of the World and Nošovice, the feature film The City of the Sun from Martin Šulíkand Zuzana Liová’s drama The House). The festivalwill also include a special two-day programme dedicated to student films entitled GoEast School Film Days and the Zlín Film Festival for Children and Youth, will be presenting itself to the public. It has put together a programme of short and animated Czech films awarded at international festivals in recent years. The festival will also focus on Slovak cinematography this year as well. The retrospective programme dedicated to director Peter Solan, who passed away last September, will also feature films from the Czechoslovak new wave.

Co-production documentaries will appear in the programme of Canada’s Hot Docs (24 April – 4 May 2014), while audiences will get a chance to see the drama’s The Godfather’s Story and Lousy Bastards in the USA in Phoenix (3 - 10 April 2014). Animated student films will be presented in Landshut, Germany (26 – 31 March 2014), in Barcelona at the MECAL festival (6 – 30 March 2014), at the MONSTRA festival (13 – 23 March 2014) in Lisbon, Portugal or at ANIMA 2014 in Belgium.