News archive / News detail
09.07.2005
Czech Film Center celebrates its third birthday
Overview of events in the last year
Karlovy Vary, 8 July 2005 – Czech Film Center is capping off its third year of existence! Even in the years to come, CFC will continue to serve as an information clearinghouse about the Czech film industry and to promote Czech cinematography at major film festivals and markets at home and abroad. CFC has three main missions: to maintain and promote interest in Czech film abroad, to support the networking efforts of local film professionals, and to gradually interweave the Czech film industry into international structures. This is why CFC welcomes with open arms the establishment of the new Department of Cinematography and State Funds of the Czech Ministry of Culture. The advent of this new institution means the ministry will be focusing directly on film for the first time since 1992, a move we firmly believe will facilitate even more fruitful cooperation in audiovisual industry in the future.
Among CFC’s most important events this year were its presentations of Czech cinematography at the international film festivals in Cannes and Berlin 2005.
Our presence at the largest film festival and market in Cannes again confirmed that promoting the cinematography of three countries in the heart of Europe in the Czech-Polish-Slovak pavilion makes sense, and so CFC looks forward to the joint presentation at Cannes again next year.
While Czech films have hardly been prominent in the official programs of those festivals, CFC has fielded numerous requests for information about the financial aspects of filming in the Czech Republic: the system of tax incentives, reimbursement for monetary investments, and the existence of private funds or companies investing in the film industry.
Meetings regarding director Jiři Menzel’s latest project I Served the King of England, which is among the largest budget Czech-international co-productions to date, confirmed that. Producers Tomáš Hoffmann (Bioscop) and Petr Zempliner (AQS) managed to make contact with several new foreign partners and confirm existing relationships during the festival in Cannes.
Another event – the 14th annual Festival of Eastern European Film in Cottbus, which took place at the end of last year, had a different focus. The festival’s program was devoted to new Czech cinema. Czech filmmakers such as Jan Svěrák and Theodora Remundová were present in Cottbus in person.
An important part of the festival is the market Connecting Cottbus, where five production companies (Dawson, Bionaut Films, Luckyman Films, Verbascum and Endorfilm) presented their projects to the professional public. In preparation for Connecting Cottbus, CFC and Media Desk CR teamed up to organize a seminar led by lecturer Sibylle Kurz on how to create film project presentations for international markets. As we learned on the spot, the preparation was a worthwhile endeavor, and so CFC will continue such educational programs for Czech film professionals this year.
CFC’s membership in the organization European Film Promotion and the annual events linked with it, e.g. Shooting Star and Producer On the Move, has proven productive. In its three-year membership, the Czech film professionals chosen to participate in the said programs have networked and made new contacts that have progressively enabled them to orient themselves on the international scene.
Over the years, actors Tatiana Vilhelmová, Aňa Geislerová, and Jan Budař were presented to the international press and film professionals in Berlin as Czech Shooting Stars, and producers Pavel Strnad, Vratislav Šlajer, and Helena Uldrichová in Cannes as Producers on the Move.
Of our domestic activities we would especially like to mention Finále Plzeň, where the Presentation of Upcoming Film Projects was held for the fifth year in a row. This year we decided to give upcoming documentary film projects their own forum, which will be held this fall in Prague in cooperation with IDF and Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival. Thanks to CFC, representatives of important European film festivals such as those in Berlin, Cannes, Venice, and San Sebastian attended the festival in Plzeň.
And last but not least, we have also prepared several publications in 2005 – the Catalogue of Czech Film 2004 with a complementary DVD, and our Brochure of Upcoming Czech Film Projects.
Contact:
Jana Černík, tel: 22 11 05 321, GSM: 724 329 949,
Markéta Šantrochová, tel: 22 11 05 322, GSM: 724 329 948,
http://www.filmcenter.cz
