This year, the International Film Festival Art Film is celebrating several anniversaries. In addition to its own 30thanniversary, it will also celebrate the 100th anniversary of notable Slovak actors and directors in the program section of Anniversary with the Slovak Film Institute. The program section has been prepared by the Art Film IFF in cooperation with its long-time partner the Slovak Film Institute, and the audience in Košice will have a unique chance to see restored films by such huge names of Slovak cinema as Vlastimil Herold, Vlado Kubenko and Stanislav Barabáš on the cinema screen.
On the occasion of the 100th birthday of several personalities of Slovak cinema – actors and directors – the Art Film IFF has selected several cinematographic works from the Film Archive of the Slovak Film Institute to pay tribute to them. The director and animator Vlastimil Herold, one of the founding fathers of Slovak animation, will be introduced by a collection of his short animated films from the 1950s to the 1980s. The festival audience will have a unique opportunity to see digitized short films such as Little Mouse Cooked Some Grits (1974) or Inventor (1983).
The documentary filmmaker Vlado Kubenko, who began working in Slovak cinema in 1945, first in news reporting, then in feature films, and since 1952 in documentary films, will be commemorated in a series of his short documentaries. The block will feature the short film Whittle again the Wooden Horse of Childhood (1973) regarding the sculptural and painter work by Vladimír Kompánek or the short group portrait Modern Indian Painters (1969) on four artists (Baal Chhabda, Maqbool Fida Husain, Mohan Saamant, Tauba Meehta), the most prominent figures of 20th-century Indian modern painting.
The film A Song about the Grey Pigeon (1961) commemorates the work of director Stanislav Barabáš, this film being his feature debut. It also stars Ladislav Chudík, who can also be seen in one of his atypical roles in the film Captain Dabač(1959). Jozef Kroner shines in four roles in the short story satirical film The Devil Never Sleep (1956). Kroner together with Chudík starred in the film Midnight Mass (1962), based on the play of the same name by Peter Karvaš. And it is not only with this cinematographic work, set in 1944, that Art Film IFF will also commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Slovak National Uprising.
In addition to celebrating the 100th anniversary of film personalities, the Slovak Film Institute will baptise and present the latest publication of film historian Petra Hanáková, We Have Our Film! (Máme svoj film!) subtitled Slovak Film Culture and Propaganda 1939 – 1945. The book is the first independent monograph devoted to domestic film culture in the period of the first Slovak Republic. She examines film in a wider cultural and reception framework. It looks not only at films and their makers, but also at the institutional background of film, propaganda and censorship, the composition and conditions of cinema projection, audiences and marketing policies. The block of short films, which will be screened after the introduction of Petra Hanáková’s book, will present a trio of short films from the 1940s. The cultural short film Permanent Lights (1940) is a cinema form of the traditional patriarchal notion of the great men of the nation (Oomini Illustri) as creators of history. On the Island of Cormorants (1944/1946) is, together with Hlavátky (1943), the last film of documentarian Pavol Bielik made for the company Nástup. And it’s a promising documentary that already clearly reveals boy/guy values, a sense of story, self-irony and elementary photogeny in capturing natural environments – typical features of Bielik’s directing. And last but not least, In the White Paradise (1943), directed by Eugen Mateíčka, which belongs first to the genre of mountain films (Bergfilm), which were started in Germany in the 1920s by Arnold Fanck and the young Leni Riefenstahl. The atmosphere of the film is carried by the idea inherent in the commentary that “in the mountains everyone is a friend”, in other words: that nature makes you better and in its pantheistic temple we experience the idea of equality. But it is also a film about the tourist promotion of the Tatra Mountains and the white sports, which was created with the collaboration of members of the Slovak Hikers and Skiers Club, who are important actors in the development of domestic “beautiful Slovak” photography and (apparently also) film.
The 30th edition of the International Film Festival Art Film will take place thanks to the support of:
Organiser: ART FILM FEST s.r.o.;
Co-organizers: City of Košice, K13 – Košice cultural centers, ART FILM FEST, n.o., LGM, s.r.o., FORLIVE;
The festival was financially supported by: Audiovisual Fund
The festival is co-financed by the Košice self-governing region from the Terra Incognita program;
Major advertising partner: Slovenská elektrizačná prenosová sústava, a.s.;
Main partners: Národná lotériová spoločnosť TIPOS, Východoslovenská energetika, EUK-Force, SPP, CODES Brand House;
Automotive partner: PORSCHE; Official hotel: Hotel Yasmin;
Main media partners: TV JOJ, Pravda, Eurotelevízia;
Advertising partners: construction company Adefex, Jadrová a vyraďovacia spoločnosť, a.s., Best Press, U. S. Steel Košice, Betpres, Transpetrol, SLOVAKIA TRAVEL, ANTIK Telecom, Cinema Úsmev, CORE LABS, Lucka spring water;
Technological partners: NOV, ZEBRA, DELTA OnLine, ARICOMA, BigON;
Official contractors: DKC Veritas, Eastern Slovak Museum in Košice, Krušovice BOHÉM, BARZZUZ, DOMOS SLOVAKIA, Restaurant Contessa, Café Slávia; Official wine: Kubbo Select and Ostrožovič;
Media partners: JOJ PLAY, JOJ 24, Film Europe, Rádio KOŠICE, aktuality.sk, Forbes, Korzár, Slovenka, SITA, TASR, See & Go, BigMedia, Košice City Guide, Film.sk, Visit Košice, diva.sk, zenskyweb.sk, MOJAkultúra;
Partners: Východoslovenská vodárenská spoločnosť, Nadácia CEF, Slovnaft, AUPARK Košice, Carmeuse Slovakia, JOJ Cinema, Hydrotour travel agency, Taper, YumEarth, KAIFER advokátska kancelária s.r.o., Deva, WITKOWITZ SLOVAKIA, Košice Airport, ECO Technologies, CPK Slovakia, Casa Trade – Casablanca cafe, DC MEDICAL, KPK Reklama, Kvitok, HAIR Factory Košice, Kvety Garomi, Air Taxi, Tesco Stores SR, a.s.;
Financial awards partners: CANON, Filmarina;
Catering partners: Ohnisko – Fire Dining & Brew Bar, Pub u kohúta, El Nacional, Maiko Sushi, Café de Paris, Tabačka Kulturfabrik; BISTRO Blanc, Andiamo GROUP, BENZE; Red Velvet Cake Bar; Tahiti, Café Veritas
