Krakow, 27^th May - 58th edition of Krakow Film Festival, one of the oldest and the most recognizable events dedicated to documentary, animated and short films has started tonight. Sergei Loznitsa, Talal Derki, and Etgar Keret are among the guests.

During the 8 festival days, the audience has a chance to see about 250 films from the whole world, presented in 4 competitions and 12 non-competing sections. The screenings are complemented with Q&As, workshops, exhibitions, concerts and KFF Industry events for the professionals, including presentations of the new Polish documentary and animated projects.

The festival has opened with the world premiere of a music documentary “Concerto for Two” by Tomasz Drozdowicz – the colourful story of an outstanding conductor, pianist and composer Jerzy Maksymiuk, as well as an intimate description of a special relationship he has with his wife Ewa. The film takes part in the international music documentary films competition DocFilmMusic and in the national competition.

This edition’s special guest is Estonian cinema. In the “Focus on Estonia” section the latest productions from this Baltic country will be presented: documentaries, shorts, a special programme for kids and teenagers and a selection of student films. The film professionals from Estonia and Poland will meet at the industry conference to discover the opportunities for collaboration. The section will be inaugurated with a daring documentary “Rodeo. Taming a Wild Country” showing the process of breaking free from the Soviet regime.

This year’s Dragon of Dragons award for lifetime achievement will go to Sergei Loznitsa („Donbass”, „A Gentle Creature”, „Blockade”), an outstanding documentary filmmaker, a multiple Krakow Film Festival winner. The programme includes the retrospective of Loznitsa’s films and his master class devoted to using of archival footage and one’s own life experiences in filmmaking.

Another highlight of the festival is a visit of Etgar Keret, one of the most famous and popular Israeli writers, a master of short fiction, screenwriter and lecturer. The documentary “Etgar Keret: Based on a True Story” will be shown as a part of “World Stories” section, and director Stephane Kaas, writer Rutger Lemm, and the protagonist are expected at the festival and will take part in meeting with an audience.

One of the more distinctive and very popular section of the festival is Docs+Science, a cycle dedicated to science films accompanied by the meetings with the experts and organized for the fifth time, in cooperation with the Foundation for AGH. One of the films presented in a section is a documentary “Jane” focusing on the story of an exceptional researcher Jane Goodall, who spent most of her life among chimpanzees. The film is directed by Brett Morgen, known for “Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck” awarded in Krakow in 2015.   

As a matter of fact, this edition seems to be marked with returns. Syrian filmmaker Talal Derki, a Silver Horn 2014 laureate for “Return to Homs”, comes with “Of Fathers and Sons”, a close up on a life of jihadists, awarded already at Sundance. Till Schauder, the last year’s winner of the DocFilmMusic competition brings to Krakow “The Reggae Boyz” about Jamaican football team. Kaleo La Belle, the winner of the KFF documentary competition in 2010 in “Fell in Love with a Girl” tells the story of his own attempts to create a perfectly functioning patchwork family. Last but not least, Zosya Rodkevich, the Golden Horn 2016 winner for “My Friend Boris Nemtsov”, comes back with “White Mama”, a documentary about a woman who, having six black-skinned children born out of her relationship with an Ethiopian man, decides to adopt a white boy with mental health problems.

Among Polish filmmakers attending 58.KFF there will be: Marta Prus, the author of the widely known documentary “Over the Limit”, that secured her a place on the prestigious Variety magazine list; Marta Pajek, last year’s winner for her animation “Impossible Figures and Other Stories II”, whose latest film “III” was selected to the competition in Cannes and Grzegorz Zariczny, the director of awarded at Sundance “The Whistle”, who comes back to the festival with “The Last Lesson” about high school graduates from the Krakow.

Traditionally in the programme there are the screenings of music films in the open air cinema at the foot of Wawel Castle (Sound of Music), films awarded in the befriended festivals (Festival Award Winners), showcase of the latest Polish productions (Polish Panorama), cinema for the young (Kids&Youth), last year’s most widely discussed documentaries from different parts of the world (World Stories) and films made in European countries (Somewhere in Europe).

58^th Krakow Film Festival will last until Sunday, 3^rd June, the award ceremony will take place on Saturday, 2^nd June.

Public Consultation

/05: Public consultation on measures to further improve the effectiveness of the fight against illegal content online - EUSurvey

Through the present public consultation the Commission seeks to gather views from all relevant stakeholders. The questionnaire is targeted to the general public, hosting service providers such as online platforms, organisations reporting the presence of illegal content online, competent authorities and law enforcement bodies, and academia, civil societies and other organisations.

Digital Single Market

15/05: EU Leaders’ meeting in Sofia: Completing a trusted Digital Single Market for the benefit of all – European Commission

Ahead of the entry into application of the General Data Protection Regulation, the European Commission presented a set of concrete actions that European leaders can take to protect citizens' privacy and make the EU's Digital Single Market a reality before the end of 2018.

EU Copyright Directive

17/05: Bulgarian Presidency of the Council’s new compromise text on the Copyright Directive – Council of the EU

The proposed Directive is one of the Commission’s initiatives under the Digital Single Market Strategy and aims to further harmonise the Union law applicable to copyright and related rights in the framework of the internal market, taking into account in particular digital and cross-border uses of protected content.

14/05: Joint press release: Audiovisual organisations unveil new international legal study supporting fair remuneration of audiovisual authors - SAA

Organisations representing authors in the audiovisual sector welcomed a new global study calling for legal reforms to help screenwriters and directors earn royalties for the use of their works.

Copyright Enforcement 

/05: Committee of Ministers – Recommendation on the roles and responsibilities of Internet intermediaries – EAO Newsletter

In order to provide guidance to all relevant actors faced with the complex task of protecting human rights in the digital environment, the Recommendation sets out a number of recommendations for member states, including that member states implement the “Guidelines for States on actions to be taken vis-à-vis Internet intermediaries with due regard to their roles and responsibilities” (which are annexed to the Recommendation) when devising and implementing legislative frameworks relating to Internet intermediaries.

Creative Europe MEDIA

22/05: An online directory of European films – European Commission

Commissioner Gabriel’s project of a creating an online directory of European films has received large support by the audiovisual sector last week in Cannes. Further to a roundtable organised in the context of the Cannes festival on 15 May 2018 on this subject, a number of organisations signed a manifesto supporting the project.

EU Budget

02/05: A financial commitment to secure Europe’s digital future into the next decade – Andrus Ansip Blog

“I am very pleased that my fellow European commissioners supported digital in the European Commission's proposals for the EU's multi-annual budget, starting from 2021. Here, digital has a strong and separate presence: you can see its footprint everywhere, spread over many different programmes” stated Commissioner Ansip.

21/05: MFF post-2020: Towards a two-speed Europe? – The Parliament Magazine

The Commission’s recently unveiled proposal for the next EU long-term budget contains few surprises. As it had been rumoured in the financial press and hinted at by Brussels diplomats, the 2021-2027 multiannual financial framework will be less about cohesion and more about other ‘priorities’, including ‘values’.

European Commission

22/05: Fact Sheet - Building a stronger Europe: new initiatives to further boost role of youth, education and culture policies – European Commission

The initiatives adopted by the Commission today will advance work towards building a European Education Area by 2025, set out how to better harness the potential of culture in driving economic and social development and boost young people's participation and resilience.

Events

CineEurope, 11 – 14 June, Barcelona – please register here

20-21 June: European Parliament Vote - Copyright Directive 

Submissions for projects that will take part Pitching and Script Exchange during the Warsaw Kids Film Forum closes on 31st of May. The international pitching forum for film projects and series for young audiences will be held on 26-28 September this year in Warsaw during the 5th The Kids Film Festival.

WKFF will hold pitchings of about 28 projects for children - series and feature films in the development or production phase, which are looking for co-producers, distributors, sales agents or financing. The second edition will introduce a new form -  the Script Exchange – for writers and scriptwriters who are looking for producers. The Script Exchange partners with Script Fiesta festival organized by the Warsaw Film School.

The best projects will be awarded by WKFF partners:

• CeTA Audiovisual Technology Center will select two projects and grant the possibility of implementing production and post-production services for a total amount of PLN 160,000;
• The Financing Forum For Kids Content will award the selected project with an invitation to Pitching in Malmö in March 2019;
• EAVE - European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs will honor one of the projects with an invitation to Producers Workshop 2018 in Luxembourg.

Projects can be submitted via the form at www.warsawkidsff.pl until May 31st. Participation in Pitching and the Script Exchange is free of charge.

Over 80 projects from 25 countries were submitted to last year's Forum and over 200 representatives of the Polish and international film industry participated.

Registration for other participants of the Forum will start on June 4 and will last until September 16. WKFF is organized by the Education Department of the New Horizons Association.

WKFF takes place thanks to co-financing of the City of Warsaw, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, the Creative Europe MEDIA and the Polish Film Institute. WKFF is partnered by Film Commission Poland, Mazovia Warsaw Film Commission, Association of Polish Animation Producers, Polish Audiovisual Producers Chamber of Commerce, Kids Regio, Akademie für Kindermedien, EAVE, The Financing Forum for Kids Content and Film New Europe and Script Fiesta.

Prague – The 58th Zlín Film Festival will feature 300 films from 55 countries around the world. In addition to representatives of traditional film superpowers, it will offer films from non-traditional countries, such as Swaziland, the Faroe Islands, Singapore, Venezuela, and Chile. The theme of this year's festival is the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Czechoslovakia, which will be presented in several film sections as well as in the supporting program. It will be supplemented with an Austrian film section and an American independent film section. The festival will start on May 25 and will run until June 2, 2018. 

The oldest and largest film festival of its kind in the world will start in three weeks in Zlín and other satellite towns. The film festival will kick off on Friday, May 25 with the Icelandic film The Great Football Adventure by director Bragi Þór Hinriksson, which is its international premiere. During the opening ceremony, adult audiences will be presented with the distribution premiere of the Slovak-Czech film Nina, directed by Juraj Lehotsky.

Zlín Film Festival's program directors have watched over 2000 films this year in order to select 300 films to present to festival audiences. "Just like last year, we are offering a slightly smaller number of movies than in the past, but they will have repeat screenings so that people will have a better chance to see them at the festival," says Artistic Director Markéta Pášmová, who adds, "This year's competition for children and youth has a very strong selection and will offer many international and European premieres. In particular, the selection of movies for children under the age of 12 gave us great pleasure, because we could choose from really high-quality films from around the world." 

A new item this year is that we've moved the documentary film genre to the competition level. "The ECFA Doc Award will award the best of 7 European documentaries for young audiences and ZFF is working with the European Children's Film Association (ECFA) to organize this competition," says Markéta Pášmová. Audiences can again look forward to movies for children and youth, European directorial debuts, animated works, student films, and much more – in six competitive and five non-competitive sections. "This year we have 33 feature films, 62 short animated films, and 74 short student films," calculates the artistic director.

Festival film themes

The main theme of the 58th film festival with regard to the 100th anniversary of Czechoslovakia will be Czechoslovak film, which will be presented to audiences in 3 thematic sections and will contain a total of 43 films. "For example, we will screen a collection of Czech and Slovak children's films and fairy tales compiled by actors and filmmakers, accompanied by their authentic memories. Many of them will be bringing their favorite film to the festival," said Markéta Pášmová. She added that the section contains 18 films and includes the films Long Live Ghosts!, The Three Veterans, I Enjoy the World with You, Once Upon a Time, There Was a King, and the animated classic How They Met At Kolin. However, Czechs will also find less known Slovak films such as Let the Princess Stay with Us and If I Had a Gun and, of course, Mrs. Winter.

One of the sections devoted to Czech film will also highlight the phenomenon of Czechoslovak film music, and through children's films it recalls important music composers such as Jaroslav Uhlíř and some who have already been taken from us, such as Karel Svoboda, Petr Skoumal, Petr Hapka and Angelo Michajlov. "We will not forget the late 90th birthday of internationally renowned screenwriter, dramaturge of FSB Barrandov and writer Ota Hofman," adds Markéta Pášmová. His life and work will be commemorated outside the retrospective film section in a photography exhibition, a new TV documentary by Karel Smyczka, and a memoir will also be baptized that's titled Ota Hofman: Wanderer of the Fantasy World!

The festival will also focus on the 120th anniversary of the first Czech films. The National Film Archive is preparing a special commentary block of Jan Kříženecký's films from the end of the 19th century for the Zlín Film Festival. In the beautiful environment of a local park, at Biograf, Czechoslovak silent comedies from the first decades of the 20th century will be screened along with a piano accompaniment, e.g. It was May 1st, Night Terror, Heart of Gold, and The Torn Photograph.

The film festival's attention will also focus on Austria, its cinema, and culture.  In a section called Austrian Journey, there will be 15 Austrian feature films for children and teenagers screened. Films will be accompanied by a number of directors and actors. The section is being held under the auspices of the Austrian Ambassador in Prague and was supported by the Austrian Cultural Forum in Prague.

A natural counterpart to traditional European cinematography will be the introduction of a new section dedicated to American independent films called American Teen, which will mix older films such as Ghost World and Napoleon Dynamite with the new films like Saturday Church and My Choice.

The complete film program will be available on May 14, 2018 at www.zlinfest.cz

 

Juries and other famous festival stars      

This year, competitive films will again be judged by experts and child judges from different countries from around the world. "The Czech Republic is represented by actress Anna Geislerová and she will be working with filmmakers from Germany, Austria, India and Poland to focus on films for children and youth. Editor and producer Adam Dvořák will work with other colleagues to judge first European films, and the actress, director and musician Johana Švarcová will be engaged with student competition films," says Markéta Pášmová.

The celebration of our republic's anniversary will also be reflected in the awards that extraordinary personalities will be taking from the festival. The 58th Zlín Film Festival will see the twenty-second awarding of the Golden Slipper and it will be the historical first to award two film stars – Slovak actress Magda Vašáryová and Czech actor Jaromír Hanzlík. The festival's organizers and the Drop of Hope Foundation will unveil stars on the Walk of Fame in front of the Grand cinema this year dedicated to Czech actress Ivana Andrlová and Slovak actor Maroš Kramár. 

The great star of this year's Zlín Film Festival will be Maestro Andrea Morricone, one of the greatest contemporary Italian composers and conductors, the son of the phenomenal composer Ennio Morricone. Andrea Morricone has composed the musical composition for the film 72 Hours in Bangkok, a film by Czech director and producer Lubomir Haltmar, which will have its world premiere at the festival. The film deals with a lost two-year-old boy in Bangkok and points to the theme of lost children. The screening will be preceded by Andrea Morricone's concert performance, and aside from the score of the film, there will also be film melodies from his father and their joint composition, which they made for the film Cinema Paradiso. 

This year, the Zlín Festival will also host young, talented actors from around the world. Sixteen-year-old Irish actor Art Parkinson will be accompanying the film Zoo; he's well-known from the the cult TV series Game of Thrones. There will also be 19-year-old Texas native, Josh Wiggins, who has played in the films The Bachelors and Hellion. He's coming to the festival to present the competition film Walking Out.

 

Film Industry program 

Zlin will also host many film professionals during the festival, for which a rich program has been prepared. Several events will take place this year that will touch on topics like regional film incentives (prepared in cooperation with the ZLÍN FILM OFFICE), the resonating theme of "working with films for children and youth in Czech cinemas", which will be introduced under the title for the educational project "New cinema." New Czech films for children and youth will be presented to foreign film professionals. There will also be a discussion on the pitfalls of creating an animated feature film at the first regular round table organized by the Animated Film Association. An integral part of the Industry program is a meeting of representatives of international and domestic festivals called Festival Community. Several special programs will be designated for students of the film industry, such as the first annual "Film Exchange" to connect film professionals creating projects in the Zlín Region and students of local film schools.

Five years of broadcasting by the children's channel of Czech Television will be presented under the title Déčko Celebrates Five Years of Fun and, together with the Executive Director of the Czech Television:D Petr Koliha, the creators and actors of children's programs of this channel will also celebrate this channel’s fifth birthday. The Industry program will also be devoted to a segment called film literacy and for the third time there will also be an RRTV conference called Media for Children, Media with Children. Particular attention will be paid to the preventive and educational part of the Industry program, which will focus on the prevention of risky Internet communication. Together with the National Center Against Organized Crime and the Service of Criminal Police and Investigation of the Police of the Czech Republic we will launch the  Say No! campaign. / Řekni Ne! – online sexual coercion and blackmailing of children.

The complete Film Industry program will be released on May 10, 2018 at www.zlinfest.cz and many events will be open to those interested from the general public.

Supporting program

The film program is also traditionally complemented by a varied supporting program. It consists of a number of theater performances, concerts, workshops, professional lectures, exhibitions, interactive and benefit programs, as well as sports and social events.

One of them, which is connected to the main festival theme – film scores the Czechoslovak film – is a concert talk show about music, film and memories. The best of the works of Karel Svoboda, Petr Hapka, Jaroslav Uhlíř, Petr Skoumal, Angela Michajlova and Jan Hammer will be played during this time. "The composition evening Sing Me a Movie won't be just about listening to famous film songs. Audiences can actively get involved; they can also enjoy musical improvisation as well as new and unconventional musical arrangements, "says Jarmila Záhorová, executive director of the film festival. The special guest of the evening will be the composer, pianist, singer and actor Ondřej Gregor Brzobohatý, who is the author of film melodies. However, film music will resonate throughout the whole festival and visitors will have the opportunity to encounter it in various places in Zlín.

A traditional part of the Zlín Film Festival is the auction of artistically rendered film clapperboards. This year's collection of the Clapperboard Salon will be made up of 145 original pieces by leading Czech artists, some of whom have been involved in the project since its very beginning. The 21st Clapperboard Salon has six stops this year, including a foreign exposition in the European Parliament in Brussels. It will culminate again with the traditional auction, which will take place on 27 May at the Congress Center in Zlín.

The last festival day, Saturday, June 2, will again belong to a run in the streets of Zlín. This will be the 3rd year of the Festival MONET + Zlín 2018 half-marathon.

 

About the Zlín Film Festival 

The Zlín Film Festival – International Film Festival for Children and Youth is the oldest and, currently, largest film festival of its kind in the world. "The festival's mission is to present international film productions for children and teenagers, to make them accessible to the child audiences, and offer a high-quality alternative to commonly available audiovisual content," says the president of Zlín Film Festival Čestmír Vančura. He also adds, "An important aspect of the festival is to educate young audiences through the medium of film, expand their awareness of the outside world, and develop their aesthetic, social, and moral feelings. The aim of the program is to contribute to the development of Czech cinema for children and youth."

There are hundreds of events and screenings in the festival program this year which will take place in more than two dozen places – not only in Zlín. "Since mid-February, the festival has been running throughout the Czech Republic through projects such as the Clapperboard Salon and the Cinema Train, which starts on May 15 in Zlín," says Čestmír Vančura, adding, "We will bring the film screenings to Mikulov from 8th to 12th June, where we will present 20 films as part of the festival Echoes."

This year's 58th ZLÍN FILM FESTIVAL will be held from May 25 to June 2, 2018 in Zlín and in many other cities in the Czech Republic. The organizer of the festival is the company FILMFEST, s.r.o..

You can find out more at www.zlinfest.cz.