Dear Colleagues & Friends,

Let me inform you about the strong presence of Slovak films at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2011 (direct link).

Please, find attached the newsletter and here a link to more information at the information website www.aic.sk:
SLOVAK FILMS – KARLOVY VARY 2011 (direct link)

Slovak films in the KV Programme:
Official Selection – Competition: GYPSY (orig. Cigán) by Martin Šulík (SK – CZ 2011) - great comeback of Mr. Šulík after 6 years break from feature films
East of the West – Competition: VISIBLE WORLD (orig. Viditeľný svet) by Peter Krištúfek (SK 2011) – first feature film, with Ivan Trojan in the main role

Variety´s 10 Euro Directors to Watch: THE HOUSE (orig. Dom), by Zuzana Liová (SK – CZ 2011) – you surely know this title from the 2011 Berlinale´s selection for the FORUM

2011: Musical Oddyssey: ILJA by Ivan Ostrochovský, SK 2010 – a portrait of one of the leading personalities of Slovak music on 20th century

Czech Films 2010 – 2011 section includes several interesting Slovak and Czech co-productions:
NICKY´S FAMILY (orig. Nickyho rodina) by Matej Mináč (SK – CZ 2011)
I.D. (orig. Občanský průkaz) by Ondrej Trojan (CZ – SK 2010)
Surviving Life (orig. Přežít svůj život) by Jan Švanjkmajer (CZ – SK 2010)

Several Slovak film projects will be presented within Film Industry events, both in Works in Progress and Docu Talents from the East.

For even more, see the newsletter, our website, and/or contact us directly.

Slovak Film Institute Representatives in Karlovy Vary:
Peter Dubecký
Alexandra Strelková July 2-6,2011
Katarína Tomková July 2-6,2011
Miro Ulman July 2-6,2011
Viera Ďuricová July 1-5,2011

W look forward to meeting you in Karlovy Vary!

With my best regards,

Alexandra Strelková
In KV: July 2-6,2011
______________________________
National Cinematographic Centre - Slovak Film Institute
Grösslingova 32, SK 811 09 Bratislava, Slovak Republic

Tel: +421 2 5710 1527, Fax: +421 2 5273 3214,
Cell: +421 905 730 040
www.sfu.sk, www.aic.sk
FB: www.facebook.com/filmovyustav
TW: www.twitter.com/filmovyustav

MOSCOW: MIFF's business platform Moscow Business Square (27-29 June 2011) chose to focus on the Baltics, Georgia and CIS countries in its third edition giving Russian producers and film professionals a chance to develop coproduction partnerships with their neighbours.

Only three days left to submit your films to Doc Launch – a presentation that showcases 9 soon-to-be-released documentaries from Central and Eastern Europe. Festival programmers, distributors, sales agents, members of the press and audiences get the first glimpse of films in post-production slated for theatrical release over the next year.
Application deadline: June 30, 2011.
http://www.dokweb.net/en/doc-launch/

Entry deadline: June 30, 2011
Dates: October 27 - 28, 2011
Location: Jihlava, Czech Republic
Participants: Filmmaker/producer teams representing 9 selected documentary projects
Organized by the Institute of Documentary Film.
Requirements:
The Doc Launch presentation accepts Central and East European documentary projects slated for release from November 2011 through October 2012. The event is geared towards remarkable feature documentary projects or rough cuts made for the cinema.
For the online entry form, go to: http://www.dokweb.net/en/doc-launch/doc-launch-presentation-application-627/?sac=60
To apply, please send 2 DVD copies with an excerpt, trailer or rough cut, as well as any other additional materials to the following address:

Hana Rezková, Institute of Documentary Film, Školská 12, 110 00 Praha 1

Additional IDF deadlines:
June 30, 2011 – EAST SILVER
September 1, 2011 – EAST EUROPEAN FORUM
September 30, 2011 - INDUSTRY ACCREDITATION

We look forward to receiving your submissions.
Kind regards,




Kristina Valentova




This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Institute of Documentary Film
Skolska 12
110 00 Prague 1
Czech Republic
T: +420 224 214 858
M: +420 739 323 938
www.DOKweb.net

Jan Komasa awarded at ART FILM FEST 2011.

The Blue Angel for Best Director went to Polish director Jan Komasa for his "Suicide Room" (Sala samobójcow). The five-member international jury summed up the picture as:
"[a] violent film steeped in the loneliness of a young generation lost in modern technology, on the backdrop of a society coming to terms with the problems of the post-communist era."

Komasa’s feature debut was presented in Main Competition with 15 other titles among which there was “The Hunter” by Bakur Bakuradze. The nineteenth annual Art Film Fest was held from June 17 to 25 in Trenčianske Teplice and Trenčín.

Art Film Fest was established in 1993 as the first international film festival of its kind in Slovakia. It was originally aimed at presenting exclusively 'art films', hence the festival's original name, Art Film. During its seventeen-year history, the festival has undergone several reorganizations and has grown noticeably in size. Each year in its festival cinemas, Art Film Fest presents films introduced at prestigious international film festivals such as Berlin, Cannes, Venice and Locarno.


Best regards,
Olga Domżała

Olga Domżała
Film Sales Support & PR Manager
Polish Film Institute
Krakowskie Przedmieście 21/23
00-071 Warsaw PL
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Mobile: +48 695 363 335

The documentary movie "Mother" by Jakub Piątek won Best Documentry award during 9th In the Palace International Short Film Festival in Bułgaria, one of the biggest documentary event in Balcan region.

In the Palace International Short Film Festival took a place in Balchik, Bulgaria between 18-25 June. 250 movies up to 45minutes from 44 countries were shown during the Festival.

The Movie was produced by Munk Studio of Polish Filmmakers Association uner the First Documentary Movie program.

"Mother" by Jakub Piatek is a psychological studium of the mother visiting her son in prison.

ANNOUNCEMENT

International Short Film Festival of Cyprus
15 - 22/10/2011

Announcement for the new International Short Film Festival of Cyprus
Call for Entries

The Ministry of Education and Culture and Rialto Theater announce that the Short Film and Short Documentary Festival has been upgraded to the International Short Film Festival of Cyprus (ISFFC). The aim of the festival is to promote and propagate the production of short films and to develop a spirit of friendship and cooperation among filmmakers. ISFFC has as its main objective the promotion of cinematographic art by presenting a diverse showcase of short films from around the globe. It also aspires to present the work of talented filmmakers who successfully use creative cinematic language forms and effectively tell a story in a short film. It is an annual event. Fiction, documentaries, experimental and animation short films not exceeding 25 minutes in length are eligible for participation in the festival’s competition. Cypriot films compete for both the international awards and the national awards of the Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture. Cypriot Directors who live and work in Cyprus or abroad are entitled to submit their work. Foreign films running the international contest for 2011 are selected and invited by the Artistic Committee, comprised by directors Alexia Roider and Ioakim Mylonas. The right to participate is reserved for films that were not shown in any other festival in Cyprus.

The Festival will take place at the Rialto Theatre in Limassol, between 15-22 October 2011.

A five-member international Jury will award the prizes among submitted and invited films. Jury names will be announced in due time.

The Festival’s upgrade to an International Competitive one marks an especially prolific year which aspires to boost local production of short films and at the same time reveal new talents and stories from around the globe.

Interested parties are invited to submit an entry form by 20 July 2011.

For details on the ISFFC terms and entry forms, please visit www.isffc.com.cy , www.filmfestival.com.cy and www.moec.gov.cy (Announcements) For further information, call 77 77 77 45, 77 77 25 52 and 00357 22-80 98 11.


RIALTO THEATRE ΘΕΑΤΡΟ ΡΙΑΛΤΟ
Anastazia Anastassiou Αναστάζια Αναστασίου
Τ:(+357) 25 34 39 00 Τ:(+357) 25 34 39 00
F:(+357) 25 74 96 63 Φ:(+357) 25 74 96 63
www.rialto.com.cy www.rialto.com.cy

33 MIFF presents: Sam Peckinpah

Kathryn Bigelow and Michael Mann, Takeshi Kitano and Park Chan-wook acknowledge his influence, though he stays one of the most disputable filmmakers in history. Sam Peckinpah began his feature career in 1961. The Deadly Companions, Ride the High Country, Major Dundee, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid distinguished him as innovator in the old western genre,dismantling the great America myth and depicting anti-heroes - loners and outsiders facing obsolescence, betrayal and death. Since the time he shot western epic The Wild Bunch in 1968, which was seen as a metaphor of intervention in Vietnam, Sam Peckinpah became a notorious legend with the nick Bloody (or Mad) Sam. This one of the most controversial movie of the period alongside with Stanley Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange and Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde, disclaimed for their naturalistic ultra-violence marked the helmer as a ‘counter-studio’ director. The latter implied that Peckinpah joined the row of respected losers like Orson Welles, whose works underwent brutal truncation. He battled producers, ruining his reputation in Hollywood and as a result managed to shoot just a dozen of movies for theatre distribution. Straw Dogs (1971) with Dustin Hoffman evoked still more controversy and deprived many of his advocates of their reason: Peckinpah was accused of over-exploitation of violence as the element to be sold in movie market; the feminists gang up on him for sexism and machism…

Peckinpah tried his innovation in various genres; in his war movie Cross of Iron (1977) he delivered a powerful antiwar message in depicting two philosophically opposed German officers on the Eastern front in World War II.

Though Peckinpah underwent a heart attack in 1979, he never stopped working and entered music video with two clips for Julian Lennon and was preparing a Stephen King adaptation when he suffered a fatal heart attack in 1984.

Unfortunately the actual value of his work was overshadowed by debates about the limits of screen violence whereas its technological and moral subtleties were neglected.

In the course of time his creation has been reconsidered. Now they say there would be no Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez or John Woo without Sam Peckinpah. Last year producer Al Ruddy (The Godfather, Million Dollar Baby) put into development the script The Texans written by Peckinpah more than 20 years ago. And in 2011 the launch of two Peckinpah’s remakes was announced, that is a spy thriller The Osterman Weekend and Straw Dogs. And, as the star of the latter Kate Bosworth mentioned, “Of course there will be controversy, I can't see how there wouldn't be with a remake of 'Straw Dogs'!”

List of films would be announced later.

His name is usually associated with New German Cinema, a group of such directors as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Alexander Kluge, Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta and Wim Wenders, who in 1962 reacted against the artistic and economic stagnation of German cinema in determination to build a new industry founded on artistic excellence rather than commercial demand. Anyhow today Werner Herzog refers to this movement as a fiction. It doesn’t mean that the internationally recognized artist left the grounds of his home culture as well as he ignores the present since many of his films, like The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo are set in the past.

Extravagant characters, heroes obsessed with impossible dreams, people in distant places confronting wild nature are not only the subject of his films, but to some degree reflect the auteur’s ego. This may be exemplified by documentary Burden of Dreams, made him when shooting Fitzcarraldo.

Though he resides in Los-Angeles now, Werner Herzog has been always on the move (“I’m a moving target”, - he jokes) since that time when he covered on foot 500 km from Munich to Paris to inspire his dear friend, dying film theorist Lotte Eisner. Every his journey is purposeful. One of the latest appeared especially remarkable: Herzog was chosen the only filmmaker on earth to capture on film the paintings on the murals of the Chauvet Pont d’Arc cave in southern France – the oldest drawings in the world. For the sake of their retention the entrance to the cave is closed, and the unique Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams in 3D will secure these images for mankind forever.

It should be noted that Herzog is not only film director, producer, screenwriter, actor but also opera director – that’s why no wonder, that his creative style and wide scope of interests is often characterized as Wagnerian. Profound seriousness neighbours in his works with ludicrous, elevated with common, and the one of the greatest world directors in the year of his 70^th jubilee didn’t hesitate to appear in one episodes of the Simpsons (2011) starring in the role of a German pharma industrialist.

The director’s choice consists of his best and last:

Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (1972)

Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle (1974)

Herz aus Glas (1976)

Stroszek (1977)

Woyzeck (1979)

Fitzcarraldo (1982)

Wo die grünen Ameisen träumen (1984)

Cobra Verde (1987)

The White Diamond (2004)

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans (2009)

My Son My Son What Have Ye Done (2009)

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2011)

For twelve years Media Forum has brought new media art to the Russian audience. It presented an avant-garde trend in the works of artists, performers, video artists and animation-makers experimenting with language, context and techniques of electronic and digital mass media. Theme of the Media Forum 2011 – «Expanded cinema». The MIFF Media Forum exhibitions at Moscow Museum of Modern Art (13 June - 3 July 2011) and at Garage Center of Contemporary Culture (24 June - 24 July 2011) presents works by artists that deny all canons and traditions and destroy the traditional structure of film. It's important for us how the artist breaks space whether it is screen or reality, social or virtual space. Media art and video art now make it possible to break and transform space. The works selected give an extra dimension to the film festival and open new opportunities to analyze and evaluate the prospects of cinema expansion and creation of more complex forms of perception by means of contemporary art. Exhibitions curators: Olga Shishko (art critic, curator, founder and director of Moscow Center for art and culture MediaArtLab, Art Director of MIFF Media Forum), Kirill Razlogov (professor, art critic, Director of Russian Institute of Culture, Program Director of the Moscow International Film Festival) At the exhibition at Garage Center of Contemporary Culture will be shown three magnificent projects: the European debut of Yang Fudong's The Fifth Night (2010), the most recent work by Eija-Liisa Ahtila Annunciation (2010) and a real video bestseller by Isaac Julien. At the exhibition at Moscow Museum of Modern Art the idea of «expanded cinema» will be visualized with works by such artists as Fiona Tan (the Netherlands), Leslie Thornton (USA), Doug Aitken (USA), Gary Hill (USA), Keren Cytter (Israel/Germany), Anri Sala (Albania/France), Johanna Billing (Sweden). Also the program will include the life multimedia performance of Ryoji Ikeda (Japan) at the Opening ceremony and a series of artists talk and lectures at the Center for contemporary culture Garage (24 June – 28 July 2011).

The first meeting of the organizers of the 33^rd Moscow Film Festival with the national and international press will take place at the Cannes film festival. Among those taking part in the presentation will be the general producer of the MIFF Leonid Vereschagin, the program director Kirill Razlogov and the public relations director Pyotr Shepotinnik. During the presentation which will take place at the “Russian Pavilion” on May 18^th at 11:00 the organizers of the MIFF will describe the main areas of work being carried out in connection with the MIFF, give the names of some of the participants, members of the Jury and some films in competition. The entrance is free for all the participants of the Cannes festival accredited as press or at the film market. The official press-conference of the 33 rd MIF, where the full list of films in the 33^rd MIFF competition will be announced, will take place on June 2^nd in Moscow. The time and place of the press-conference will be announced later.