Prague, 16 December 2013 – Prague will be celebrating a holiday of short film on this year’s winter solstice, 21 December. The Czech Film Center, in cooperation with the Prague Short Film Festival, the iShorts association and Germany’s AG-Kurzfilm, will be organising a marathon of short films in Prague’s Aero cinema from 6 p.m. until midnight. The strip of films, lasting 145 minutes, will run twice.
The shortest Day of the Year Project was established in France in 2011 as a holiday of short film followed last year by Germany and this year by another 10 countries, including the Czech Republic.
“We have been involved with short films since 2010, and so the idea for a day of short films intrigued me immediately. It is another opportunity to make this genre available to viewers and to get it into cinemas outside of film festivals,” stated Markéta Šantrochová from the Czech Film Center.
There are four blocks of films in the programme, each lasting about 40 minutes. The individual blocks are put together by the partners that the CFC invited to the project – the Prague Short Film Festival, iShorts and AG-Kurzfilm from Germany. Each series will be played twice. The CFC chose five animated films for the programme, such as Pavel Soukup’s Tumorrow Never Knows about a lonely old woman who decides to not have a tumour that has appeared on her neck removed, even though it threatens her life. It is, after all, her only “close” friend. Other selected films are In vino veritas by Aneta Žabková - Kýrová, in which three middle-aged women meet after 25 years and compare their lives, and this year’s recipient of the Magnesia Prize, Jakub Kouřil’s animated film M.O. – the story of a lonely grandmother who orders a mechanical grandfather by post to liven up her days.
For the longest winter evening the Prague Short Film Festival selected the short horror The Legend of Beaver Dam, in which a scary campfire story awakens an evil monster. Other films from the selection include Colin Kennedy’s Scottish comedy I Love Luci about some knocked out teeth and unrequited love or Germany’s The Centrifuge Brain Project, describing a scientific experiment in the 1970’s, in which the scientists examined the effects of bizarre amusement park rides on the human brain. In the film Dr. Laslowicz comments on the project results. He believes that a centrifugal force of 20,000 horsepower can save all of mankind’s problems.
The best German short films were represented in the selection from AG-Kurzfilm, which includes a manifest or short films entitled Short Film from the successful Olaf Held, Susann Marie Hempel’s experimental The Big Rot – a cinematic farewell to the theatre in Greiz comprised of slides, and Darling from Izabela Plucinska, an animated depiction of the transformation of relationships due to serious illness and a loss of memory.
The iShorts selection includes the film Fist of Jesus, which is characterised by the slogan: Jesus is always willing to lend a hand to those in need, though there are others who will experience his fist. The Irish film Blinky is the story of a small boy and his robot. It tells of the results of anger in the disintegration of the boy’s parents’ marriage. The film adaptation of the acclaimed short story How to Keep Your Day Job written by Rebecca Rosenblum displays the feeling of fulfilment, or rather its absence, from the monotonous work in skyscrapers.
We are sure that this pleasant winter event will also be the start of a new tradition here in the Czech Republic and that we, just like in France or Germany, will celebrate short films on the shortest day of the year in the future as well. The screenings are public. The entrance fee of 110 CZK includes an introductory short drink.
You can find the evening’s programme and more information on the films being shown at www.filmcenter.cz/shortfilmday.
Denisa Štrbová
Czech Film Center
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