Prague, January 31, 2011 – The 33rd annual film festival and the 26th short film market in Clermont-Ferrand, France, will be held from February 4-12, 2001, and Czech Film Center will be there to represent the Czech Republic for its second year running. A Czech film, The Tour Guide, directed by Asmara Beraki and produced by FAMU and Czech Television, will be screened in the festival's main competition.
The market and festival in Clermont-Ferrand is the biggest professional event devoted exclusively to short films. This year the market will host some 272 companies, 83 buyers, 456 producers, 93 distributors and 436 festival organizers. This marks a huge spike in visitors over previous years. (More at www.clermont-filmfest.com).
Like last year, Czech Film Center's stand will be open during the entire market, offering a great opportunity to present Czech short film production and to network with new and old industry professionals. The stand will opens with an informal happy hour starting at 5 pm on Monday, February 7, 2011, where we will officially present CFC's latest DVD, Czech Short Films Vol. 2, released this week. A block of short films from the DVD will be screened to visitors at 6 pm on Tuesday, February 8, 2011 at the Georges Conhon Theater. The block features these shorts: Domino (dir. Žofie Zajíčková / VOŠF), The Father (dir. V. Dzurenková / FAMU), Graffitiger (dir. L. Pixa, FAMU), Lucas – Curse of Drawned Cat (dir. J. Císař / VŠUP), People Involved (dir. J. Těšitel / FAMU), Swimming Pool (dir. S. Hetmerová).
CFC's partners FAMU, Anifest and Anifilm will also be represented in Clermont-Ferrand.
The inclusion of director Asmara Beraki's Czech movie, The Tour Guide, in the festival's international competition is a major success. Ms. Beraki, who hails from America, studies at FAMU where the work was made as a co-production with Czech Television in 2009. The psychological film about a spurned woman's revenge on her gravely ill husband draws an analogy between architecture's functionality and everyday life's animalism.
There will be professional events, pitching forums with potential distributors and buyers, a co-production forum and many more events throughout the duration of the festival.
Contact:
Markéta Šantrochová, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., mobile: +420 724 329 948.
Lenka Šindelářová
Czech Film Center - Film Promotion
____________________________
Národní 28, 110 00 Praha 1
tel: + 420 221 105 398
gsm: +420 604 307 605
fax: + 420 221 105 303
e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.filmcenter.cz
www.filmovakomora.cz
Prague, February 1, 2011 – At the end of January, Czech Film Center will release the second edition of its DVD of short films. The DVD, titled Czech Short Films Vol. 2, presents 12 short films created by students from Czech film schools (namely: FAMU, FAMO – Film Academy of Miroslav Ondříček, Film School Zlín). The main aim is to highlight Czech short films, promote them abroad and to establish closer cooperation with film schools and new filmmakers.
The DVD follows up on the edition from 2010, when the Czech Film Center published the first selection of short films on DVD, launching its systematic attention to Czech short films. The DVD was presented to more than one hundred international film festivals in 2010, and blocks of short films were presented at festivals or screenings in France, Germany, Great Britain, Denmark and Estonia.
The second DVD, which is out now, offers a collection of the most interesting short films from 2010, and includes German and French subtitles in addition to English.
The shorts are selected by jury, which this year consisted of Prague Short Film Festival program director Karel Spěšný, Kateřina Fričová, who long worked in television and now focuses on media consultancy and educational activities, film publicist Vojtěch Rynda, Petr Horák, author of the iShorts film nights project, and Markéta Šantrochová of CFC.
The jury's task was by no means easy, as it had 148 films to choose from.
"When I saw the list of titles that I'd have to watch and assess, I almost panicked – there really were just so many. Ultimately, however, I spent those 14 days at my computer with pleasure. Sure, at times I found myself clenching my teeth, sometimes my eyes just hurt, sometimes I was rolling my eyes ... but that was all offset by some really well-made works. I am confident that together we chose the best of the best for the collection. And the pleasure I experienced I will be able to share even more," says Kateřina Fričová.
Karel Spěšný adds: "It is extremely important for young filmmakers to have the opportunity to reach larger audiences and the competition in the bigger pond one finds at film festivals rather than at their schools or with a group of friends. That is why this CFC initiative, which seeks to help young filmmakers get their films to international film festivals, is incredibly important. After all, it is the custom of countries that are devoted to developing their culture and self-promotion. Thanks to this project, we have come one step closer to a world we probably would like to belong to."
The DVD will be presented for the first time at the Clermont-Ferrand festival and and short film market, where Czech Film Center will be representing Czech film for the second year running.
Czech Short Films Vol. 2 presents the following films:
Lucas – Curse of the Drawned Cat / Jaromír Císař / VŠUP / CZ 2010 / animation / 9´
The tale of a gang of village kitties' dramatic attempt to rescue their feline friends being kept in the local pond under a spell by the evil Sorcerer's tomcat.
The tomcat, named Drowner, on the prowl for local kitty-cats, uses spells to hold them in some sort of trance at the bottom of the pond. Fortunately, a city cat called Lucas and two of his tomcat friends devises a plan that extracts revenge while rescuing the spellbound felines. Evil is ultimately punished, and good wins – the village is full of cats again!
Spirit of Talking Books / David Havas / FAMU / CZ 2010 / documentary / 21´
Pavel records plays in the theater I enjoy going to. We became friends and teamed up to make a simple film about well-earned love and talent that, ideally, will remind man that he has choices in life.
Dominoes / Žofie Zajíčková / Film School Zlín / CZ 2010 / animation / 9´
A world that stands on dominoes. Unfortunately, it is divided into two parts. What one country lacks, the other has too much of, and vice-versa. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, a pear flies into town. It "perches" itself atop one of the houses and does nothing else. A boy doll, which tries to get to sort it all out, walks right up to the very edge of his world. Here starts a new new, colorful world full of plants and what's more – with different laws of gravity... The film tells the story of the efforts of two beings, a girl doll and a boy doll, to fix a broken country, thereby creating a new, more valuable, whole one.
Father / Viktoria Dzurenková / FAMU / CZ 2010 / feature / 26´
A live-action, documentary-like film that attempts to authentically depict a complicated father-son relationship. The two are Slovaks living in Prague, each for a different reason. The son is studying and focusing on his career, while his lonely father moved there in hopes of building what he had failed to in the past. His tragicomedic efforts miss the mark, however. The protagonists are non-actors – a real-life father and son who are living this drama in real life.
Graffitiger / Libro Pixa / FAMU / CZ 2010 / animation / 10´
A funny and slightly melancholy story of a lonely graffiti tiger whose home consists in the walls and facades of Prague's buildings. The city of graffiti-covered dirty streets and alleys is a wild jungle where the tiger is seeking the path to his long-lost love. This exciting and hilarious story emerges from the attractive combination of 2D cartoon animation and live action shots.
People Involved / Jan Těšitel / FAMU / CZ 2010 / feature / 26´
The story begins and ends at Brighton in Ústí nad Labem. Emily's English, Petr's Czech. He dies and she goes to meet his parents. Her journey is a quest for forgiveness and the language barrier is not the only thing that must be overcome.
Swimming Pool / Alexandra Hetmerová / FAMU / CZ 2010 / animation / 7´
An erotic love story of two outsiders in an indoor pool in the middle of a big city.
Departure: On Time / Tomáš Pavlíček / FAMU / CZ 2010 / feature / 21´
A deeply motivated film about an unmotivated friendship between two outcasts – twenty-year-old Ondřej, who is still confounded by his future, and fifty-year-old Karel, who is just confounded.
Elevator / Jan Drozda / VŠUP / CZ 2010 / animovaný / 6´
A symbolic rendering of human life. The hero of the film passes through various floors of a building as one passes through various stages of life, and the problems, questions, doubts and temptations that come with it, until arriving at the end of his journey.
Rousek / Tomáš Klein / FAMU / CZ 2010 / feature / 14´
Mr. Rousek is rambling, lamenting, making calls. As only he can do. What all must happen so the windows can be opened...
At Command / František Bárta / FAMU / CZ 2010 / animation / 4´
A parable about the aggression of commercialism and society's willingness to succumb to its influence. Find out for yourself what happens when you try moving out of lockstep with the crowd.
Automatic for the People / Jan Vejnar / FAMO / CZ 2010 / feature / 29´
Adam's got a thankless job. He runs a machine which the public is convinced operates automatically. Isolated from human contact, desperate for any relationship more personal than the one through the machine's metal wall. All of his desires eventually fix on one of the vending machine's many users. Can Adam escape from his loneliness and establish contact with her?
Contact:
Markéta Šantrochová, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., mobile: +420 724 329 948
Lenka Šindelářová
Czech Film Center - Film Promotion
____________________________
Národní 28, 110 00 Praha 1
tel: + 420 221 105 398
gsm: +420 604 307 605
fax: + 420 221 105 303
e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.filmcenter.cz
www.filmovakomora.cz
..fascinating, threatening and surreal! Jan Švankmajer Retrostrospective in Dresden
Press releases 31-01-2011….fascinating, threatening and surreal!
Jan Švankmajer Retrostrospective in Dresden
Press Release
Prague / Dresden, January 28, 2011 – A series of screenings of remarkable feature films by Czech surrealist, artist and animator Jan Švankmajer is set to open on Wednesday, February 2, 2011, in Dresden's Thalia theatre. The series runs until April 2, and is organized by Czech Film Center in cooperation with the German Institute of Animated Film (DIAF).
Jan Švankmajer's cinematic adaptations are inspired by the “visionaries of consciousness,” Lewis Carroll, Edgar Allen Poe and Marquis de Sade. The series kicks off on February 2 with his first feature film, Alice, from 1988. The movie was shot in the Czech Republic during the period when Jan Švankmajer was officially banned from filmmaking, and was made as his first German-British co-production.
The film tells the story of Alice, who finds herself in a fascinating and at the same time threatening world haunted and inhabited by bizarre creatures and objects. Švankmajer does not romanticize childhood as might be expected, but sticks to the dream logic of Lewis Carroll's famed Alice in Wonderland. The director magically combines animation and actress Kristýna Kohoutová's dramatic talent.
His second movie, Faust, which will be screened on February 16, adapts the Czech literary classic. Here Švankmajer combines various animation techniques with drama and life-size puppets, harkening back to the start of this versatile Czech artist's career in the art of puppetry.
“The film series is like an appetizer,” project co-organizers Andre Eckardt (DIAF) and Jana Černik (Czech Film Center) say in the spirit of Jan Švankmajer. “The main course – an exhibition of collages made during the filming of his latest feature, Surviving Life (Theory and Practice) – will be served in April. The exhibition will introduce his methods to Dresden audiences. We believe that this will be an intense experience.”
All films will be presented by Andre Eckardt of the German Institute of Animated Film (DIAF).
www.diaf.de www.thalia-dresden.de www.filmcenter.cz
Contact
Jana Černík / This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. / mobil: 724 32 99 49
Lenka Šindelářová
Czech Film Center - Film Promotion
____________________________
Národní 28, 110 00 Praha 1
tel: + 420 221 105 398
gsm: +420 604 307 605
fax: + 420 221 105 303
e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.filmcenter.cz
www.filmovakomora.cz
“The Tail Operation” by Ewa Pytka has been awarded with the Special Jury Prize in the History Makers Awards 2011 competition, whose winners were revealed at the special event that took place in New York between January 26 – 28. The Best History Production of the Year Award went to “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers”, Best Current Affairs Production Prize has been granted to “Afghanistan: Behind Enemy Lines”, and the Best Historical Drama Production Prize – to the “Darwin's Darkest Hour.”
The ”Tail Operation” - a docudrama written by Włodzimierz Kuligowski and produced by the TVP’s Film Agency, presents one of the most peremptory and secretive operations in history of the communist Poland intelligence. It is a story of Piotr Jeglinski - a student of History Dept at the prestigious KUL, University of Lublin - who had been central for integrating an opposition circles in the late 70s. With help of Kazimierz – an agent, who had been one of the couriers of Piotr Jeglinski’s special net of smugglers of the black-listed literature to the communist country – the police decides to eliminate Piotr Jeglinski and starts an operation under the cryptonym the “Tail”…
more information on the awards:
www.historymakers2011.com
Do you speak video? Visit www.polyglot-turku.eu to discover the entries!
NISI MASA received 87 valid submissions from 28 different European countries: Video Portraits (documentary) on My multilingualism and Video Poems (fiction) on The language I dream in.
Voting is open until February 14th on the POLYGLOT website. 18 winners will be selected in total – 9 by the public and 9 by a special jury. Already confirmed for the jury are Vivian Paulissen (manager of the European Cultural Foundation’s Youth & Media Programme - The Netherlands), Barnabás Tóth (filmmaker and actor - Hungary), Radka Weiserová (head of production, Fresh Film Fest - Czech Republic) and Massimiliano Spotti (researcher in linguistic ethnography, University of Jyväskylä - Finland).The selected young filmmakers aged 18-35 will participate in the “Cine-Boat” documentary filmmaking workshop travelling across the archipelago of Turku (Finland) in June 2011, to celebrate its status as European Capital of Culture.
For more information contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
POLYGLOT: on the way to Turku is organized by NISI MASA – the European network of young cinema with the support of the Turku 2011 European Cultural Capital and the European Cultural Foundation.
NISI MASA – European Office
99 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis
75010 Paris. France
Phone: +33 (0)9 60 39 63 38
Fax: +33 (0)1 48 01 65 31
Dates and Venues 2011
Session 1: May 15-21, Romania
Session 2: July 3-9, Italy
Session 3: September/October, venue t.b.c.
What is ESoDoc?ESoDoc - European Social Documentary is a training initiative promoted by ZeLIG School for Documentary (Italy) with the support of EU's Media Programme.ESoDoc takes up the challenge of bringing together the demands of different players now involved in documentary film-production. Our focus is on a special genre of documentary production that is particularly suitable for the new multi-platform world: documentaries that draw attention to human rights, social justice and environmental protection.ESoDoc participants submit a fresh proposal for a documentary or a crossmedia project along with their application. This project is developed in the following six months at three 1-week sessions and in-between via on-line consulting.
Who should apply?ESoDoc is intended for professionals who are committed to the goal of social change, who are responsive to the new ways that film is achieving it and who want to develop their own documentary film projects across a 360 degree spectrum. We are looking for documentary filmmakers and producers, NGO and NPO sector professionals with audio-visual experience, and New Media Professionals who want to realize www projects according to the spirit of ESoDoc or collaborate with others.
What you'll get out of ESoDoc?We encourage sensitivity in working with cultures of the developing world and co-operation with indigenous communities also through the use of “participatory video”. ESoDoc is increasingly focused on digital media, and illustrate the varieties of multi-platform programming and social websites. We outline the market in Europe, the different and new ways of funding, distributing and co-producing social documentaries. One to one sessions for budgeting are hold during the workshop and the final session is focused on pitching.
Workshop StructureESoDoc offers three 1-week workshops, held over a 6-month period, during which participants, either individually or in groups, develop projects based on specific Social Documentary themes. An e-platform will provide support during and between the workshops and allow continuous collaboration through a library, different project-related discussion forums and dialogue among the teachers, tutors and participants.
Enrollment Fee and ScholarshipsThe cost per participant is 1.200 Euro (600 Euro for participants from new member states). This covers tuition, room and board but does not include traveling expenses. Four scholarships are available. To access scholarship funding, the applicant must provide the latest official tax return together with the other application materials.
Requested application materials, application forms and further information can be found on www.esodoc.eu or contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Krakow, 28th January 2011 – Only a week left to submit a film for 51st Krakow Film Festival, which will take place between 23rd and 29th May 2011. Deadline is on Friday, 4th February. The Festival presents films in the three competition and in the special cycles. Only the films completed after 1st January 2010 are eligible for competitions.
Prague, January 31, 2011 – Every year Czech Film Center's first publication of the new year is a catalog and DVD of Czech films, and this year is no exception. This edition presents features and documentaries premiered in 2010 and upcoming films scheduled to premiere before June 2011. The effort is enhanced by a selection of short films released on a separate DVD.
CFC aims to continue its longstanding tradition of publishing annual catalogs that map out Czech film production in the given year and inform of upcoming premieres, helping industry professionals to plan screenings at important festivals in Europe and elsewhere.
The new catalog and DVD, Czech Films 2010-2011, contains information on 21 feature films, 20 documentaries and 12 selected shorts from 2010, and 19 features and documentaries with premiere dates scheduled by mid-2011. For each movie, the publication presents a synopsis, technical information, contact details for the producer or foreign sales agent, photos from the film and the director's selected filmography. The catalog also includes selected statistics and a key directory of audiovisual companies and institutions from the Czech Republic.
The DVD supplement to the catalog provides information on features and documentaries from 2010 and presents trailers from movies and snippets of interviews with their directors.
The catalog and DVD are both bilingual editions – Czech-English.
Information on the films is also available online at www.filmcenter.cz, where you can also download the entire catalog.
Contact:
Markéta Šantrochová, tel: +420 22 11 05 322, GSM: +420 724 329 948, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Lenka Šindelářová
Czech Film Center - Film Promotion
____________________________
Národní 28, 110 00 Praha 1
tel: + 420 221 105 398
gsm: +420 604 307 605
fax: + 420 221 105 303
e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.filmcenter.cz
www.filmovakomora.cz
Dear Friends,
Documentary Campus and One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in partnership with the Institute of Documentary Film kindly invite you to a unique industry event:
Documentary Campus Industry Session
11-13th March
Prague, Czech Republic
“One World, Many Ways” –
New Directions in Human Rights Documentaries
Documentary Campus is honoured to present a three-day industry event during the acclaimed One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Prague (8-17 March 2011). Thought-provoking panels and case studies for industry professionals will be run parallel to workshops on low budget and online production for newcomers. It’s a forum for East and West to network, to discuss professional development and co-production opportunities from the filmmaker to the commissioning editor level.
“One World, Many Ways” will explore ways to tell the stories that need to be told and introduce some of the world’s most important human rights filmmakers who have risked their lives to tell them. Stay tuned each week as we reveal our list of international guests.
More information:
Register now for the event on our website: http://www.documentary-campus.com/v2/page/symposia/symposia_register/53/
Participation fee will be 50,00 € only (catering is not included).
There will be no further reductions on the participation fee.
Find more practical info on the weekend at: http://www.documentary-campus.com/v2/page/symposia/53/
For more info on the One World Film Festival, please have a look at: www.oneworld.cz
The Institute of Documentary Film also invites you to the open program of Ex Oriente Film workshop taking place in March 14 – 19, 2011.
http://www.dokweb.net/en/ex-oriente-film/1st-workshop-session-programme-outline-607/?sac=2
We look forward to meeting you there!
The upcoming International Film Festival in Rotterdam will present two films from the East Silver Market 2010 - the epic documentary about the life of the Romanian dictator The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu by Andrei Ujica and nominated for the Silver Eye Award, and My Perestroika by Robin Hessman.
