22-05-2012

FESTIVALS: Zlin to Award Minac, Nemec

By FNE Staff

    {mosimage}ZLIN: The 52nd IFF for Children and Youth (www.zlinfest.cz), running 27 May - 3 June 2012 in the Czech city of Zlin, will present the festival's Grand Prix to Slovak director Matej Minac for "the innovative and deeply human theme" in his film Nicky's Children and the Lifetime Achievement award to Czech cameraman Frantisek Nemec who marks his 80th birthday.

    The competition for the world's largest and oldest children's film festival includes several CEE films in the competition sections. In the first festure films competition, Lithuania is represented by Saulius Drunga's debut film Anarchy in Zirmunai (www.tremora.com), Bulgaria is represented by Shelter directed by Dragomir Sholev and produced by Rossitsa Valkanova, and the Czech Republic is represented by Vendeta (www.bionaut.cz) directed by Miroslav Ondruš. In the competition of children's feature films, Poland sends Felix, Net, Nika and Theoretically Possible Catastrophe (www.wfdif.pl) directed by Wiktor Skrzynecki and the Czech Republic sends The Blue Tiger (www.negativ.cz) directed by Petr Oukropec.

    Festival director Petr Koliha noted the difficulty of maintaining the festival's quality level with a 30% cut in the budget, but the cuts were not in evidence in the festival programme. The festival will present 248 films representing 41 countries, with 86 of those films screening in the four competition sections. Thirteen of the films will be world premieres, 11 will be international premieres, and 91 will be Czech premieres. The festival also announced a new event, the presentation of the ECFA (European Children's Film Association, www.efcaweb.org) for the best children's film in the festival.