Relaxed atmosphere at Czech Republic film festivals

One should think that only a genuine film fanatic is able to sit all day in a cinema when the summer weather is at its peak outside.

Come to this year’s festival in Karlovy Vary and you will see there are thousands of avid viewers here who will forget about the outside world for a week. And anyone who will not be able to stay an entire day in a dusky movie theatre can go to see a play or musical performance or just have a rest in the park. Because the main motto of this film show is to take it easy…
The beginning of the summer holidays and the biggest cultural event of the year – the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has been offering this connection for 44 years. This most important international film festival in Central and Eastern Europe and the only category “A” festival in the Czech Republic will take place during 3–11 July 2009.
The most visited section of the festival is the international competition of full-length feature films, in which films made by experienced creators as well as debutants may battle for the Crystal Globe. This year, the jury will evaluate, for example, a film by the Hungarian film-maker György Pálfi entitled I am not your friend, a South Korean production that is an impressive pilgrimage for atonement to the “roof of the world”, and a Polish-German film named Świnki. The East of the West competition will present a selection of the best films made during the past year in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and of the former Soviet block. The audience may look forward to seeing the Russian film Paper Soldier, dealing with the times when the efforts to conquer outer space culminated in the Soviet Union, or the Polish film Scratch, in which a long marriage is disrupted by the wife’s finding that her husband had collaborated with the secret police. Facing up to the past will be the topic, too, of the section 20 years of Freedom, which will attempt to map development of post-socialist society over the past two decades.
This year, the Forum of Independents, which is already one of the festival’s traditional sections and provides to the audience an unusual film perspective on the world, will be extended by an independent Japan films section, Tokyo FilmeX.
Celebrities and film stars of course comprise an important part of the festival. The television cameras will be trained on both well-known faces and those of yet-unfamiliar novices. For example, Leonardo di Caprio, Scarlett Johansson, and Keira Knightley, who are now top film stars, enjoyed the relaxing walk on the colonnade a few years ago. This year, the name Miloš Forman has already been confirmed definitively to be on the VIP guest list. He will introduce his film A Well Paid Walk in its world premiere.
In the middle of the summer holidays, it will certainly be worthwhile, too, to visit the 35th Summer Film School in Uherské Hradiště (24 July – 2 August 2009). There is no danger of encountering tedious lectures at this school, as several interesting cycles are prepared for the audience (for example, Austria, The Other Belgium, Migration as a Syndrome) and these will be accompanied by concerts, theatrical performances, and workshops. The cycle Freeze Frame Comics and Film will introduce works from film authors personally connected with – comics (Kevin Smith, Terry Zwigoff, Frank Miller, Marjane Satrapi, and others). We can look forward to retrospectives of contemporary Austrian and Belgium film-makers (for example, Ulrich Seidl, the Dardenne brothers), as well as of the Czech film directors Václav Vorlíček and Věra Chytilová. in Uherské Hradiště (24 July – 2 August 2009). There is no danger of encountering tedious lectures at this school, as several interesting cycles are prepared for the audience (for example, Austria, The Other Belgium, Migration as a Syndrome) and these will be accompanied by concerts, theatrical performances, and workshops. The cycle Freeze Frame – Comics and Film will introduce works from film authors personally connected with The Film School will also deal with the topic 100 years of Polish film. French film-making will be represented by neo-baroque film, led by Leos Carax, Jean-Jacques Beineix, and Luc Besson. Film journals from the Visegrad Group countries will present a selection of films in each category, and a course taught by teachers from Prague’s Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts will be held throughout the Summer Film School. The accompanying programme will culminate on 26 July 2009 with a concert by the New York songstress and singer Suzanne Vega.

Other film festivals in the Czech Republic:
River Film Festival, Písek, 31 July – 9 August 2009
International Mountaineering Film Festival, Teplice nad Metují, 27–30 August 2009
International Festival of Tourism Films TOURFILM, Karlovy Vary, 7–8 October 2009
International Documentary Film Festival, Jihlava, 27 October – 1 November 2009