Art Film Fest, Slovakia’s premier film event, is on the threshold of its 25th anniversary, only a year away. It will enter this new era with multiple new additions and improvements, including a new home, six varied screening venues, 13 programme sections and more than 150 films!
This year’s most significant change for the popular film festival is its relocation to Košice. The new setting offers ample space for what’s most important: first-rate films. Dozens of competition and non-competition films will be screened at five venues: Kunsthalle and Kulturpark, the former Kino Slovan, Kino Úsmev and the city’s open-air cinema.
Karel Roden, Stephen Daldry to be joined by Laraz Ristovski, Sir Alan Parker
It’s no secret that this year’s first Actor’s Mission Award recipient will be Czech actor Karel Roden and a Golden Camera will go to British director and screenwriter Stephen Daldry. But now the festival’s traditional awards will also go to Serbian actor Lazar Ristovski (Actor’s Mission Award) and British director Sir Alan Parker (Golden Camera).
GOLDEN CAMERA AND ACTOR’S MISSION AWARD LAUREATE PROFILES:
Lazar Ristovski
This famous Serbian actor, director, producer and screenwriter was born on 26 October 1953 in Yugoslavia and studied at Belgrade University’s Faculty of Dramatic Arts. Ristovski’s natural acting talent is demonstrated by his body of work to date: he has acted onstage approximately 4000 times and appeared in over 70 films, television series and productions, mostly in lead roles.
His big international breakthrough came in 1995 with his starring role as Blacky/Crni in Emir Kusturica’s Underground, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes.
In 1996 he set up his own production company (Zillion Film) in order to produce his directorial debut The White Suit (Belo odelo). This auteur film (written, directed, produced by and starring Ristovski) premiered at Cannes Critics’ Week in 1999, achieving major international recognition. It was also the Yugoslav national entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and Ristovski later created a literary adaptation of the screenplay.
He also played the circus artist Caruso in the drama King of Thieves (Kráľ zlodejov), which was the Slovak national entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Ristovski has produced 13 feature films, directed two – The White Suit and The White Lions (Beli lavovi), and is the author of three novels.
Art Film Fest 2016 will be screening the following films with Ristovski in attendance: On the Other Side, The White Suit, The White Lions and Underground.
Stephen Daldry
Respected British director Stephen Daldry started his career at the Sheffield Crucible Theatre and later directed extensively in Britain’s regional theatres. In London he was Artistic Director of the Gate Theatre and the Royal Court Theatre. He has also directed at the National Theatre and the Public Theatre in New York, taking many productions from Broadway to the West End and vice versa. His Billy Elliot the Musical recently commenced its first UK and Ireland tour, having just completed a hugely successful and highly acclaimed multi-award-winning 12-year run in London. It previously played on Broadway, in Holland, Seoul, Sydney, Melbourne, Chicago and Toronto, and across the US. In 2009, the production won 10 Tony awards, including Best Musical, more than any other British show in Broadway history. Stephen’s first four films (Billy Elliot, The Hours, The Reader and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) together received 19 Academy Award nominations and two wins. His latest film, Trash, set in the favellas of Rio de Janeiro, was nominated for Best Film Not in the English Language at the 2015 BAFTAs. His award-winning London productions of The Audience and Skylight have recently finished Tony-winning runs on Broadway. Daldry has previously directed for BBC Radio and Television and is currently directing the new Netflix series The Crown, written by Peter Morgan. He is Director of the Pier 55 Performance Park in New York and was Creative Executive Producer of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies for the London Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Art Film Fest 2016 will be screening the following Daldry titles: The Reader, Billy Elliot, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Hours and Trash.
Sir Alan Parker
One of Britain’s most distinguished directors, with a career spanning the Atlantic, Sir Alan Parker was born in London in 1944. After finishing secondary school, he began working in the mailroom at ad agency Collett Dickenson Pearce, where he gradually worked his way up to copywriter. Thanks to his talent, by the end of the 60s he was directing ad spots. He made his film debut by writing Waris Hussein’s film Melody (1971). The screenplay to his directorial debut, the musical gangster parody Bugsy Malone, earned him a BAFTA Award. Parker’s major breakthrough came with his prison drama Midnight Express, winning him a BAFTA Award and an Oscar nomination for Best Director (Oliver Stone wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay). For the drama Birdy, he won the Grand Prize of the Jury from Cannes, and Mississippi Burning brought him his second Oscar nomination. In this part of the world he is also well known for Pink Floyd: The Wall and The Commitments, the latter earning him a BAFTA Award for Best Direction. Another musical film of Parker’s was his adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Evita, starring Madonna, created in conjunction with the music videos for the songs “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” and “You Must Love Me”. Angela’s Ashes, his social drama on Irish poverty, won the Audience Award at the 2000 Karlovy Vary IFF. His latest film is the American crime drama The Life of David Gale, on an opponent of capital punishment who is himself sentenced to death. Parker has also authored children’s books and the memoir A Filmmaker’s Diary. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2002, and in 2013 BAFTA presented him with a lifetime achievement award.
Art Film Fest 2016 will be screening the following Parker films: Angel Heart, Midnight Express and Mississippi Burning.
Karel Roden
Karel Roden is one of today’s most distinguished Czech actors, frequently cast in domestic and foreign productions. He was born in České Budějovice in 1962 to a family of actors, including his father, grandfather and younger brother Marian. After his studies at the Theatre Faculty at Prague’s Academy of Performing Arts (alongside actresses Ivana Chýlková, Vilma Cibulková, Eva Holubová and Veronika Žilková), he worked at various theatres (DISK, the Vinohrady Theatre, the Drama Studio in Ústí nad Labem, the National Theatre in Prague, the Theatre on the Balustrade, Labyrint). His portrayal of Bruno in a production of The Magnificent Cuckold earned him an Alfréd Radok Award in 1999.
At the start of the 1990s he travelled to the UK, where he attended acting courses and refined his English. Roden has appeared in dozens of Czech and foreign films. He made his cinematic debut in 1983 with Château Infinity (Zámek nekonečno), but audiences will more likely remember him as Honza in the romantic comedy How Poets Lose Their Illusions (1984). In her 1989 drama Time of the Servants (Čas sluhů, 1989), Irena Pavlásková cast him as the wimpy Milan. With 12 Czech Lion nominations to his name (for King Ubu, The Melancholic Chicken, Victims and Murderers, Parallel Worlds, Little Girl Blue, Habermann, Fall of the Innocent, Alois Nebel, Four Suns, Krásno and Photographer), he finally won one for his portrayal of the deaf Douša in Filip Renč’s Guard No. 47.
In 2001 Roden played criminal Emil Slovak alongside Robert De Niro in the US drama 15 Minutes, continuing to be cast as villains in foreign films like Blade II, Bulletproof Monk, Hellboy, RocknRolla and Frankenstein’s Army.
Also of note was his role of the father in the Czech/German/French/Slovenian/Slovak drama Family Film (2015, d. Olmo Omerzu), which brought him the Best Male Actor award at Cottbus.
Art Film Fest 2016 will be screening the following Roden films: Photographer, We Are Never Alone and RocknRolla.
ART FILM FEST 2016: COMPETITION OVERVIEW
This year’s International Competition of Short Films will comprise a total of 36 pictures. The programme will also feature a special selection of six shorts entitled Salute to Belgium.
The International Competition of Feature Films, the festival’s main competition, will include 13 pictures:
Las Mimosas/ Mimózy /Mimosas/ Oliver Laxe/ Morocco, Spain, France, Qatar/ 2016
Divines/ Divines/ Krásky /Houda Benyamina/ France/ 2016
Eshtebak / Konflikt / Clash/ Mohamed Diab/ Egypt/ 2016
24 Wochen/ 24 týždňov/ 24 Weeks/ Anne Zohra Berrached/ Germany/ 2016
Wild/ Divoká/ Nicolette Krebitz/ Germany/ 2016
Dobra žena/ Dobrá manželka/ A Good Wife/ Mirjana Karanović/ Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia/ 2016
Já, Olga Hepnarová/ I, Olga Hepnarova/ Petr Kazda, Tomáš Weinreb/ Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, France/ 2016
Les Cowboys/ Kovboji/ Cowboys/ Thomas Bidegain/ France/ 2015
La Ciénaga entre el Mar y la Tierra/ Medzi morom a zemou/ Between Sea and Land/ Carlos del Castillo, Manolo Cruz/ Columbia/ 2016
Ranenij angel/ Ranený anjel/ The Wounded Angel/ Emir Baigazin/ Kazakhstan, Germany, France/ 2016
Foraeldre/ Rodičia/ Parents/ Christian Tafdrup/ Denmark/ 2016
Junction 48/ Stanica 48/ Udi Aloni/ Israel, Germany, USA/ 2016
Córki dancingu/ Vábenie sirén/ The Lure/ Agnieszka Smoczyńska/ Poland/ 2016
ART FILM FEST 2016: LIST OF SECTIONS
International Competition of Feature Films, International Competition of Short Films, European Corner, Be2Can Starter, Variety Select: Art Films, Around the World, Love and Anarchy, Focus: American Indies II, Profile: Stephen Daldry, Eastern Promises, Slovak Season, Late Night Show, Actor’s Mission Award, Golden Camera, Children’s Movies, Special Screening
ART FILM FEST 2016: JURIES
SHORT FILMS JURY
Simon Ellis
Simon Ellis’s short films have received numerous awards and been presented collectively in retrospective programmes at many film festivals worldwide. His BAFTA- and European Academy Award-nominated short film Soft won 38 prizes, including the International Jury Prize at Sundance and Best Short Film at the BIFAs. He attends many festivals as either filmmaker or juror and has mentored short film directors in both the UK and overseas.
Carmen Gray
Carmen Gray was born in New Zealand and now lives in Berlin. She is a film critic and journalist for The Guardian, Sight & Sound, Screen, The Calvert Journal, Senses of Cinema and Sirp (Estonia), and is the former Film Editor of Dazed & Confused Magazine in London. She is also a film programmer, and is on the selection committee for Berlin Critics’ Week.
Pavel Horáček
Pavel Horáček was born in České Budějovice, Czech Republic. He graduated in Film Theory and History and Audiovisual Culture from Masaryk University in Brno, devoting his theses to means of expression and specific animation techniques, primarily in Czech animated film. For three years he worked at AniFest, the International Festival of Animated Films in Teplice, as programme director, and he now holds the same position at the Anifilm MFAF in Třeboň. He has also worked with the Olomouc Festival of Film Animation and the Animania Festival in Plzeň. Horáček occasionally writes on film and animation in specialized Czech periodicals. He has curated three DVD anthologies of Czech animation released by the Institute of Czech Animation. He prepares supporting films and special animated film programmes for institutions at home and abroad. He was also the catalogue editor for the exhibition Jiří Trnka’s Studio.
MAIN JURY
Steven Gaydos
Variety Vice President and Executive Editor Steven Gaydos is responsible for over 250 reports a year in both Daily and Weekly Variety, producing territorial surveys, film and TV market reports, genre studies as well as business-oriented personality and corporate profiles.
An editor with Variety since 1994, Gaydos also created and directs the 10 to Watch programme for Variety, spotlighting emerging talent from around the world.
Gaydos created and continues to oversee the Variety Critics’ Choice: Europe Now official sidebar at Karlovy Vary IFF, which focuses on presenting the best in new European cinema.
Prior to joining Variety he produced films including director Monte Hellman’s Venice IFF Golden Lion winner Road to Nowhere, Better Watch Out and Iguana, as well as All Men are Mortal for director Ate de Jong and director Nouchka Van Brakel’s One Month Later.
Vica Kerekes
Vica Kerekes is a Slovak actress of Hungarian ethnicity. She studied acting at Bratislava’s Academy of Performing Arts, appearing in the film Terminal Station (Konečná stanica, 2004) during her studies. Since then she has acted in over 30 Czech, Slovak and Hungarian films and series, among the most successful being the comedies Shameless (2008, d. Jan Hřebejk) and Men in Hope (2011, d. Jiří Vejdělek). She also appeared in Slovak national Oscar nominee Broken Promise (2009, d. Jiří Chlumský). Her performance in 7 Days of Sin (2011, d. Jiří Chlumský) earned her a Slovak Igric Award and a Czech Lion nomination. For her role in the Hungarian film Ki/Be Tawaret (2009, d. György Molnár), she won the Best Actress Award from the Hungarian Film Week. Her notable television work includes the series Odsúdené (2009, d. Róbert Šveda, Peter Bebjak). She currently lives in Prague and Budapest.
Petr Kolečko
Petr Kolečko graduated in stage dramaturgy from the Theatre Faculty of Prague’s Academy of Performing Arts in 2009. Theatre continues to be among his pursuits – from 2008 to 2015 his plays were among the most performed on the Czech stage. His dramas The Salome Case (Kauza Salome) and The Medea Case (Kauza Médeia) were nominated for the Alfréd Radok Award for Play of the Year.
Aside from theatre, Kolečko also devotes his time to writing radio and television scripts. With Jan Prušinovský, he wrote the serial Sunday League (Okresní přebor), contributing to the feature film of the same name as well. He also adapted his own plays for the comedies Icing (Zakázané uvolnění, 2014, d. Jan Hřebejk) and The Fifty (Padesátka, 2015, d. Vojtěch Kotek), which has been seen by 450,000 viewers in the Czech and Slovak Republics. He co-wrote the epic Czech-Slovak feature-length biopic Masaryk (d. Julius Ševčík), which is headed for cinemas in 2016.
Kati Outinen
Though she graduated in acting from the Helsinki School of Drama in 1984, Kati Outinen made her onscreen debut as early as 1980 in the generation-defining Finnish film Here We Go, Life! (Täältä tullaan, elämä!, d. Tapio Suominen). In 1986 she began working with director Aki Kaurismäki, thanks to which she is now among the best-known Finnish actresses both at home and around the globe. Her long-standing collaboration with him has produced films such as Shadows in Paradise (1986), Hamlet Goes Business (1987), The Match Factory Girl (1990), Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatiana (1994), Drifting Clouds (1996), Juha (1999), Lights in the Dusk (2006) and Le Havre (2011). For her performance in his film The Man Without a Past (Mies vailla menneisyyttä, 2002) she won Best Actress at the Cannes IFF. She also appears in the films of other directors, such as Viktor Tauš’s Czech-Finnish-Luxembourg-Slovak co-production Clownwise (Klauni, 2013).
Lorenzo Vigas
Lorenzo Vigas was born in Venezuela in 1967. He graduated in biology in 1994. He moved to New York in 1995 to attend several film workshops at New York University. In 1998 he returned to Venezuela to direct the TV documentary series Expedition (Expedición).
Between 1999 and 2001 he directed several documentaries for the production company CINESA. In 2004 he filmed his first fiction short in Venezuela: Elephants Never Forget (Los Elefantes Nunca Olvidan – Official Selection, International Critics’ Week, Cannes 2004; Clermont-Ferrand 2005, New Directors/New Films 2005).
In 2015 he won the first Golden Lion in Latin American history with his feature debut, the drama From Afar (Desde allá).
Ticket sales:
http://predpredaj.zoznam.sk/sk/listky/5541/art-film-fest-2016
Art Film Fest – a new city, a new programme and new ways to have a great time!
Organizers: ART FILM FEST, s.r.o., Forza, a.s.
Co-organizers: The City of Košice, K13
The festival is held under the auspices of Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic Robert Fico.
Financial support: The Audiovisual Fund
Main sponsors: InVestito, Transpetrol, Slovnaft
Official festival automobile: Hyundai
Official carrier: ČSA
Logistics partner: DHL
Official festival hotel: Hotel Yasmin
Sponsors: Herberia, Barzzuz, Ida Sandor, HC Košice
Official suppliers: NOV s.r.o. Zebra, Budiš
Main carrier: Železničná spoločnosť Slovensko
Official festival daily: Košice Dnes
Main media partners: Radio and Television of Slovakia, Nový Čas
Media partners: Rádio FM, Rádio Regina, Korzár SME, TV JOJ, Rádio Košice, Film Europe Channel, Forbes, Kam do mesta, webnoviny.sk, TV NAŠA
Partners: Kino Úsmev, Autocont, Congress Hotel Centrum, Carpano, Casablanca cafe, Hotel Maraton, DigitalOcean, Tabačka Kulturfabrik, The Cuba Libre, SSUŠ Filmová, Hotel ROCA, Czech Tourism Slovensko, Bratislava Region Tourism
