15-01-2021

Czech docs compete and being pitched at the FIPADOC 2021

    Czech cinema will enrich this year’s programme of the FIPADOC (January 18-24, 2021) with  4 documentary films and co-productions in four different competitions. Two docs were  selected for the Visegrad Focus. In addition, two projects take part in the International  Pitches and several Czech professionals participate in industry panels.

    In the Musical Documentary competition appears Slovak-Czech The Band, directed by  Ladislav Kaboš, produced by Michael Kaboš (KABOS film & Media) and Svatava Maria  Kabošová (MEDIA FILM), is co-produced Radio and Television Slovakia and Czech Television  on the Czech side. The documentary is a story which chronicles the birth of the Gypsy Band  Lomnické Čháve in difficult social circumstances of a Roma settlement in Eastern Slovakia.  The Czech Film Fund supported The Band in the call for minority co-productions in 2016. 

    Celebrated documentary A New Shift, directed by Jindřich Andrš, takes part in the Impact  competition. A story of Tomáš, a miner forced to radically change his life after the closure of  the Paskov mine, is produced by Miloš Lochman, Karel Chvojka, Augustina Micková of  moloko film and co-produced by Bystrouška, Česká televize and FAMU. The Czech Film Fund  supported a winner of Ji.hlava's Czech Joy for production with EUR 23 000. 

    Two other competition includes Czech documentaries. While Martin Páv’s Wolves at the  Borders are part of the European Stories competition, Forget Me Not by Adéla Křižovenská  will compete in the competition for new talents. Wolves at the Borders, produced by Zuzana  Kučerová of Frame Films and supported by the Czech Film Fund with EUR 50 000, looks at  the contradictory reactions to wolves slowly returing to countryside in the Broumov region.  Forget Me Not, animated student film of FAMU deals with the impact of communism in the  Czech society. 

    Visegrad Focus 

    The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia have been selected to form this year’s  focus of the FIPADOC. In order to create an exceptional Focus, FIPADOC is partnering with  key actors in each region – in the Czech Republic it is the Institute of Documentary Film. 

    Two Czech documetnaries are part of the focus. Ticket to the Moon by Veronika Janatková  and The Good Death by Tomáš Krupa. Janatková’s German-Czech film, produced by Stefan  Kloos of Kloos & Co. Medien and co-produced by Veronika Janatková and Czech Television  on the Czech side, and ZDF / Arte. The documentary focus on people who wanted to  

    participated in the space race on both sides of the Iron Curtain in the second half of the 20th century.

    Industry programme 

    In the noncompetitive part of the porgamme, Hana Jarklová and Alice Tabery of CINEPOINT takes part in the International Pitches with Musica O Muerte: Destined to Freedom. The  documentary tells a story of Gorki, a Cuban rocker who has fought against the communist  regime in his homeland for many years.  

    Director Greta Stocklassa (Kiruna - A Brand New World) will introduce her Blix, a portrait of a  Swedish polititian and diplomat, produced by Radovan Síbrt & Alžběta Karásková of PINK in  the International Pitches – History. 

    How to co-produce with Visegrad Group (20. 1. 2021, 11:00-12:30) countries will answer  Vratislav Šlajer (Bionaut) along with his colleagues from Hugary, Poland and Slovakia. The  panel will be moderated by Zdeněk Blaha (IDF, The Czech Republic), and IDF’s Blaha will also  take part in the event Panorama of Festivals and Markets in Central Europe (20. 1. 2021,  12:30-14:00). 

    While Anna Kryvenko will participate in the Dealing with the (archival) past in Central Europe  (21. 1. 2021, 16:00-17:30) panel with her My Unknown Soldier (2018), Pavla Klimešová will  discuss Caught in the Net in the Documentary in Central Europe: Hybrid Forms and  Innovation (20. 1. 2021, 16:00-17:30). Marketa Stinglová of Czech Television and Hanka  Kastelicová of HBO Europe take part in the Broadcasters in the Visegrad Countries – And  Beyond (22.1. 14:30–16:00). 

    In addition, producer Kristýna Michálek Květová (Cinémotif Films) and director Veronika  Lišková will appear in the Window on Ex Oriente (21. 1. 2021, 18:00-18:30) with their project  The Visitors.