3rd press release
Prague, March 25th, 2011
The most interesting films of the 18th Days of European Film
Prague: April 14-21 in Světozor and Lucerna cinemas, Brno: April 22-28 in B. Bakala cinema
The Echoes of the Days of European Film: Boskovice (April 26-29); Jablonec nad Nisou (April 27May 1); Olomouc (April 25-28); Uherské Hradiště (April 26-28); Veselí nad Moravou (April 27-30).
As it was written in the previous press releases, this year’s 18th Days of European Film will offer around 40
contemporary films from over 25 European countries. You can look forward to premiered films as well as
those that have scored success at many festivals (for instance films shown in the LUX Prize section
representing this European award). The festival will be opened in Prague’s Světozor cinema on April 14,
2011 with the comedy Three (2010) about a love triangle by renowned contemporary German film
director Tom Tykwer. The film will be introduced at the festival gala opening by its main protagonists:
Austrian actress Sophie Rois and German actor Devid Striesow. The Prague part of the Days of European
Film will close with a preview of Czech Made Man (2011), a black comedy directed by Tomáš Řehořek
with Jan Budař in the leading role, in the Lucerna cinema on April 21. The festival screening of the film
will be accompanied by a delegation of the film-makers headed by director Tomáš Řehořek and actor
Jan Budař.
Out of the rich programme of this year’s festival, we would like to highlight the To the Point section which
well offer the British retro comedy set in the stormy 1960s, Made in Dagenham (2011), directed by Nigel
Cole, famous for his films Saving Grace and Calendar Girls. Based on real events, the director depicts a strike
of women working in a factory in Dagenham who stood up for equal rights and against discrimination. With a
typical British social feeling, Cole has succeeded in handling this serious topic with humour and without cheap
lapses. He has thereby approached similar British comedies, such as, for instance, The Full Monty.
This year we will present a new section focused on the European Parliament’s awards, the LUX Prize, in
which the awarded film When We Leave (Die Fremde, dir. by Feo Aladag, 2010) will be screened along with
other nominated finalists. The winning drama, featuring a lonely fight of a young Turkish mother (Sibel
Kekilli) for her young son, is an impressive view of a conflict between two cultural traditions. Out of the other
films, we should name at least the Belgian Illegal (Illégal, dir. by Olivier Masset-Depasse, 2010) depicting the
everyday oppressive dramas of illegal immigrant in Belgium, and the Greek comedy castigating all kinds of
prejudices, Plato’s Academy (Akadimia Platonos, dir. by Filippos Tsitos, 2009). We will at the same time
show the winner of last year’s LUX Prize, Welcome (dir. by Philippe Lioret, 2009), a thrilling story of an
ageing swimming instructor and his disciple, refugee Bilal, who plans to swim across the Channel to England.
The National League section will again present an overview of the films that have been officially proposed as
candidates for Oscar nominations by individual countries. The audience can look forward to current films from
the highly acclaimed Romanian cinematography, such as Police, adjective (Politist, adjectiv, dir. by Corneliu
Porumboiu, 2009), a frosty film about a conflict between an individual and the system evoking the times of the
totalitarian regime with a surprisingly sharp conclusion. Another film in this section is Temptation of St. Tony
(Pűha Tonu Kiusamine, dir. by Veiko Ounpuu, 2010) offering an allegoric view of the present (not only)
Estonian society. It depicts a metaphoric story of a young businessman on his search for the meaning of life.
This black-and-white stylised picture loaded with black humour abounds in a similarly cunning and absurd
poetics like in the films by Pavel Juráček, a legend of the Czech New Film Wave of the 1960s.
The programme will again include The Best Of section of the most interesting works from national
cinematographies. The audience can see, for example, the sophisticated Slovenian thriller Personal Baggage
(Osebna prtljaga, dir. By Janez Lapajne, 2009) about a complicated love triangle, a seductive femme fatale and
one unfortunate coincidence, as well as The Tree (L´arbre, dir. by Julie Bertucelli, 2010), a French magical
mesmeric film with popular actress and singer Charlotte Gainsbourg in the leading role. The Spanish film
Woman without Piano (La mujer sin piano, dir. By Javier Rebollo, 2009) for a change features Jan Budař in
an atypical role of a Polish repairman.
A new part of the this year’s programme is the Film&Music section presenting several selected European
films elaborating music as their main theme, such as the documentary about the Viennese electronic and
experimental scene VINYL (dir. by Andrew Standen-Raz, 2010), and the Polish retro comedy about a punk
band under the previous regime, All that I Love (Wszystko co kocham, dir. by Jacek Borcuch, 2009). It is
freely connected with the Polish documentary Beats of Freedom (Zew volnosci, dir. by Leszek Gnoinski,
Wojciech Slota) mapping the unofficial music scene in the communist Poland. Out of the other music films, we
would like to mention the Hungarian retro musical Made in Hungaria (dir. by Gergely Fonyó, 2009) about the
first impulses of rock and roll in Hungary, which markedly reminds of the successful musical comedy Big Beat
(Šakalí léta) by Jan Hřebejk.
In connection with this section, we will also screen a jewel of the early Czech cinematography, Erotikon (dir.
by Gustav Machatý, 1929), within the accompanying programme. It will be accompanied by live music
played by the electric-acoustic band Forma Live that will carefully preserve the film’s original atmosphere. In
his last silent film, Gustav Machatý, who would turn 110 this year, works with a film form in a very
sophisticated and modern way. The film abounds in excellent photography as well as modern editing techniques
and its montage is based on the period avant-garde tendencies. Thanks to it, Erotikon makes a very fresh
impression even today. In a similar way, the music accompaniment by Forma Live headed by the electronic duo
Forma (Robert and Michal Formans) along with musicians Viktor Dořičák, František Kuča (both Café
Industrial) and cellist Terezie Kovalová (Republic of Two) makes the universal story about a notorious seducer
and his fatal romance with a very young country girl accessible to the general public and updates it for our
present time. The Forma Live formation has composed the music as a new official soundtrack for the Erotikon
drama within this year’s touring film event Project 100.
Following up the previous festivals, we will continue to stage morning screenings of selected films for
secondary schools. They are organised in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport.
A traditional panel debate will be also held within the DEF, this time focused on the issue: The digital era of
cinemas or how to address a film viewer in the digital era. The seminar will take place in Prague’s Aero
cinema from 9:00 to 16:00 on April 15. Digital technologies are dramatically changing and they influence
traditional methods of film funding, distribution and marketing. The digitisation of cinemas brings not only new
possibilities of screening but also of distribution of the content, and it considerably extends the programme
offer in digitised cinemas. At the same time, the way film viewers perceive the audiovisual content is changing
as well. All this makes new demands on cinema operators in the area of cinema programme management and
work with projects. Current technologies and the Internet also open a number of new possibilities to address
viewers and make them more involved in various projects. The aim of the seminar is to provide a survey of
these possibilities and show their use in our country and abroad on the basis of examples of successful projects.
The event is held by the MEDIA Desk Czech Republic in cooperation with the Days of European Film
festival and the Pro-DIGI civic association. The participation in the seminar is free. Registration by April 1
to: [email protected].
Ticket prices: 90,- Kč in Prague and Brno. All films will be again screened in their original version with
Czech subtitles, besides most films has English subtitles.
The concept and graphics of the 18th Days of European Film have been created by Bohdan Heblík – kofila.com
and Jaro Hejduk Dufek – photo5.cz.
Detailed information on the programme is available on our website:
www.eurofilmfest.cz
The DEF is also presented on the official Facebook.
The festival is held under the aegis of Czech Culture Minister Jiří Besser, Education, Youth and Sport
Minister Josef Dobeš, The European Commission Representation in the Czech Republic and Bohuslav
Svoboda, Mayor of the Capital City of Prague.
The festival is organised by embasies and cultural institutes of European countries and the Capital of
Prague, with support of the EC Representation in the Czech Republic, the Czech Ministry of
Culture, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, The
European Parliament – its information office in the Czech Republic, the Brno Culture Centre and
Eurimages.
The festival’s general partner is FILM + channel; the main partner is NOGUP agency.
The main media partners are public Czech Television and Czech Radio 1-Radiožurnál. The media partners
are Lidové noviny, Lidovky.cz, Expresradio, Óčko TV channel, Respekt, Student Agency, Houser and
Kinobox.cz .
Contacts:
PR DEF:
Mgr. Alice Aronová, Ph.D.
GSM: +420 603 339 144, fax: +420 221 105 303
[email protected]
www.eurofilmfest.cz
Postal address: Národní 28, Praha 1, 110 00
www.eurofilmfest.cz