The first Czech & SlovakFilm festival starts tomorrow in Melbourne, Australia. The festival will open in the exclusive spaces of the Capitol Theatre, a building that opened in 1924 and is one of the most notable historical buildings in Melbourne, with this year’s winner of the Czech Lion for best film, David Ondříček’s In the Shadow. The opening was preceded by the start of an exhibition of Jiří Trnka in Gallery Domov as well as the showing of some of Trnka’s films.
The opening of the Jiří Trnka exhibition and the official introduction of the programme for the 1st Czech & Slovak Film Festival in Melbourne took place on 18 May. With the participation of the festival’s Artistic Director, Cerise Howard, the Head of the Czech Consulate in Sydney, Hani Stolina, and the Honorary Consul of the Slovak Republic in Melbourne, Vojtěch Markuš, the 120 present filmgoers were not only introduced to the legendary puppeteer and animator, Jiří Trnka, and his film work, but also to the programme of the entire first Czech & Slovak festival. Thus the festival organisers, together with the Consulate of the Czech Republic in Sydney, the Embassy of the Slovak Republic in Canberra, the Czech Film Center, the National Film Archive and Czech Centres put together a worthwhile presentation of films from recent years that were successful both with audiences and in festivals.
“I have to emphasise that the idea to organise a presentation of Czech and Slovak films in Melbourne did not arise only from my initiative. The Czech & Slovak Film Festival arose thanks to enthusiasts around me, all fans of Czech and Slovak cinematography just like me, and they were not all of Czech or Slovak origin. I was even more delighted when I was invited to Prague last September to be a member of the jury for the Mezipatra festival and could thus use the opportunity to establish contacts with representatives of film institutions in both countries, to share my eagerness to organise a film presentation on a faraway continent… I am sure that the Czech & Slovak Film Festival will not be only a one-off affair and that Australian film fans in other cities all over the country will be able to see contemporary Czech and Slovak films,” added the festival’s Artistic Director, Cerise Howard.
Trnka’s exhibition entitled “Jiri Trnka – Serving Imagination” will run until 9 June 2013 and will be accompanied by screenings at ACMI Cinemas of five of Jiří Trnka’s classic animated films, in cooperation with The Melbourne Cinémathèque – The Emperor’s Nightingale (1948), Cybernetic Grandma (1962), The Archangel Gabriel and Mrs Goose (1964), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1959) and The Hand (1965). The Archive Programme will be complemented by the 1962 Slovak film The Sun in a Net by Štefan Uher.
The presentation of current films will open in the aforementioned Capitol Theatre on Thursday 5 June with David Ondříček’s successful film In the Shadow and it will go on to present films that were successful with both audiences and in festivals, such as Hřebejk’s Cosy Dens and Tomáš Luňák’s animated film Alois Nebel, Zuzana Liová’s successful debut The House, Helena Třeštíková’s documentary Private Universe and the family comedy The Blue Tiger. Slovak cinematography is represented by the classic film from the year 1962, The Sun in a Net, and a short film from Martin Snopek and Ivana Laučíková, The Last Bus. The whole festival will conclude on 9 June with another film that won the Czech Lion for best film, Flower Buds, a social drama from the year 2012 by director Zdeněk Jiráský.
The full programme and further information can be obtained on the festival’s web pages: www.casffa.com.au
Contact: festival@filmcenter.cz, tel: +420 221 105 398