Press release no. 5, March 6 th 2018 FRENCH ACTRESS CATHERINE DENEUVE TO RECEIVE KRISTIÁN AWARD THIS YEAR Prague IFF Febiofest 2018 will open with THE PARTY by UK director Sally Potter Catherine Deneuve, Arnaud Desplechin, Leos Carax and Daniela Kolářová will collect Kristián awards Jiří Kodet will be honored with a commemorative medal in memoriam Febiofest will close with BATTLE OF THE SEXES by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris Festival opening and closing The 25 th edition of the Prague International Film Festival Febiofest will deliver excellence, a diverse offer and highly eminent guests. Since it began, the festival has grown tenfold and today viewers come from all age and social groups. Further growth is likely to come in quality, I think, said festival president and founder Fero Fenič. His words are borne out by the selection of films. This year s edition will be ceremonially launched on March 15th, 2018 at Prague s Municipal House with The Party by renowned UK director Sally Potter. The star-studded British drama features Kristin Scott Thomas, Timothy Spall, Patricia Clarkson, Emily Mortimer and Cillian Murphy. The festival closes on March 22nd at CineStar Anděl with the US movie Battle of the Sexes. It is based on an actual 1973 match that pitted two US tennis number ones, Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, against one another and stars Emma Stone and Steve Carell. Kristián award recipients The Prague IFF Febiofest 2018 will bestow lifetime achievement awards on a number of luminaries. At the opening ceremony the Kristián will be presented to great French actress Catherine Deneuve and Czech cinema legend Daniela Kolářová. During the festival the Kristián will also be collected by the directors Arnaud Desplechin and Leos Carax. Guests The main guest at this year s edition of the Prague International Film Festival Febiofest will be the French actress Catherine Deneuve, whose star remains undimmed since her first major roles in the 1960s. Alongside Ismael s Ghost director Arnaud Desplechin, one of the stars of that movie Hippolyte Girardot, and Mark Gatiss with the series Queers, the festival will welcome director Kornél Mundruczó with his Jupiter s Moon. Also due to attend are actresses Daphné Patakia and Maryna Cayon from Tony Gatlif s Djam, while Serbian director Goran Paskaljevic will introduce his Cabaret Balkan toward the end of the festival. Within the Generations section the director Ben Brand will present his Find This Dumb Little Bitch and Throw Her in the River, Julia Langhof will introduce her LOMO: The Language of Many Others and Kasper Rune Larsen his Denmark. Out 1, a 12-hour project by French director Jacques Rivette, will be shown across four screenings at the Ponrepo cinema and accompanied at the festival by Véronique Manniez- Rivette and actress Hermine Karagheuz. Rasmus Dinesen will present his Michelin Stars: Tales from the Kitchen within Culinary Cinema, Ása Helga Hjörleifsdóttir will bring her film The Swan to the Northern Lights section and producer Andro Steinborn will represent If I Think of Germany at Night, playing in the Docs section.
New Europe competition section Once again this year a jury of 33 film fans, headed by Marta Kubišová, will bestow the festival s Grand Prix and accompanying EUR 5,000 award. The New Europe competition is open to emerging filmmakers showing their first or second works. It presents pictures by young directors that are ambitious in concept and form and provoke, reflect and express an authorial view of the world in which we live today and the relationships we experience. The Danish producer Julie Waltersdorph will personally introduce the 2017 festival hit Winter Brothers, a visually refined drama with a political subtext focused on two siblings at a remote limestone mine. The main characters of 2557, a debut set in Bangkok, find themselves in a dreamlike environment; German director Roderick Warich, who will take part in a Q&A with viewers, captures the flipside of an apparent paradise, occupied by both gangsters and ghosts. Actress Sarah Francesca Brænne and director Kim Hiorthøj will present the formally playful, emotionally powerful The Rules for Everything, which deftly explores human inadequacies and the worries of a chaotic world. Embroidered facts, intimacy, internal manipulation and the merciless reality of modern relationships feature in the debut The Heart, which will be introduced by actress Fanni Metelius. The Grand Prix will be awarded to the winner at the closing ceremony on March 22nd. Czech Mint medal for Jiří Kodet In cooperation with the Czech Mint in Jablonec, Febiofest will this year honor one of the most eminent of Czech actors, Jiří Kodet, with a commemorative medal. The gold medal will be received at the opening ceremony of Febiofest by his widow, Mrs. Soňa Kodetová. This follows similar tributes in past years to Karel Fiala, Rudolf Hrušínský and Vladimír Menšík. Film fans can already vote on the luminary who should receive this honor during the next edition of Febiofest. The medal can be purchased at www.ceskamincovna.cz. The loose series of commemorative medals entitled Stars of the Silver Screen offers 100 quarter-ounce gold medals at CZK 13,950 and 400 10-gram silver medals at CZK 950. Amnesty International award The Prague IFF Febiofest also bestows the Amnesty International Febiofest Award. This year s jury comprises Irish actress Ann Skelly, director and presenter Šimon Holý and Martina Pařízková of Amnesty International. At the festival AI will be promoting a petition for the release of Tibetan teacher Tashi Wangchuk, who is facing 15 years in prison for advocating for the teaching of Tibetan at Tibetan schools. He is accused of separatism though his aim was to draw the Chinese authorities attention to the lack of Tibetan language education, including via a short documentary mapping his efforts produced by the New York Times. He has been in custody awaiting a verdict for two years. You re the Filmmaker competition final The finalists in the fifth edition of the You re the Filmmaker competition are the amateur filmmakers Adam Karásek, Jáchym Belcher, Jeremy Tichý, Klára Drbohlavová, Matyáš Sobotka, Olivek Beaujard, Ondřej Samek and Petr Černý. The theme of the contest was the festival s motto Let yourself be carried away. During the festival the finalists will take part in a workshop run in cooperation with My street films. The winners will receive cash prizes of CZK 30,000, CZK 13,000 and CZK 7,000. The ceremonial announcement and screenings of all the finalists films will take place at 3 pm on March 23rd at YouTuber Jirka Král s Zetko venue.
Master class with international directors As part of the OFF accompanying program this year viewers will also enjoy the chance to meet filmmakers at master classes. French director Arnaud Desplechin, who is presenting the premiere of his Ismael s Ghosts at the festival, will appear in a moderated discussion at the Ponrepo cinema at 5:30 pm on Monday March 19th. The second guest will be the enfant terrible of French cinema Leos Carax, who will discuss his films with viewers at Ponrepo at 3:30 pm on Thursday March 22nd. Entrance to both master classes is free. Film Industry Prague Film Industry Prague, a forum for film professionals, will take place in the second half of the festival from Monday March 19th to Wednesday 21st at the hotel Vienna House Andel s Prague. Discussion themes will be: How to sell and distribute a European debut?, Introductory lecture on current trends in VR, Case studies on the development and production of interactive projects, Current trends and new ways of storytelling and Financing and further opportunities for video games and VR in Europe. The lectures and discussions will be led by representatives of major film festivals and sales companies, producers, the creators of interactive projects, etc. Festival passes New at this year s edition are festival passes, which are available for three, five or nine (meaning the entire duration of the festival) days. Alongside cheaper tickets, festival passes also deliver free or discounted entrance to the festival s accompanying program. Five- and nine-day passes also come with a discount to Culinary Cinema, while the latter option also comes with festival gifts and other advantages. Festival passes can be purchased at the festival s website. Holders will be able to buy tickets online from noon on March 8th; regular advance sales do not begin until midnight that day. Febiofest 2018: Even more places, even more films This landmark edition of the festival offers more films and screenings than ever before. During 25 years, it has been attended by several hundred thousand viewers who have seen almost 4,400 films from 186 countries. Five more cinema greats will this year receive the Kristián award, adding to the 41 already presented. Febiofest is also growing in terms of regional versions of the Prague festival. This year it will visit 16 other cities and towns throughout the Czech Republic, presenting a program of over 170 feature films in 15 sections in more than 430 public screenings. During the Prague section films will be shown at the traditional CineStar Praha Anděl and CineStar at Černý Most as well as the Ponrepo cinema and the Municipal Library.
Cities and towns hosting the festival: Prague (March 15 th March 23 rd, 2018), České Budějovice (March 26 th March 28 th, 2018), Hradec Králové (March 27 th March 29 th, 2018), Plzeň (March 28 th March 30 th, 2018), Chomutov (March 29 th March 30 th, 2018), Děčín (April 3 rd April 5 th, 2018), Jihlava (April 4 th March 6 th, 2018), Pardubice (April 5 th April 8 th, 2018), Kladno (April 6 th April 8 th, 2018), Vsetín (April 9 th April 11 th, 2018), Mikulov (April 10 th April 12 th, 2018), Liberec (April 11 th April 13 th, 2018), Beroun (April 12 th April 14 th, 2018), Ostrava (April 16 th April 18 th, 2018), Brno (April 17 th April 19 th, 2018), Zlín (April 18 th April 20 th, 2018), Olomouc (April 19 th April 21 st, 2018). www.febiofest.cz www.facebook.com/febiofest www.youtube.com/user/ifffebiofest www.instagram.com/febiofest https://twitter.com/febiofest Press: Gábina Vágner, t: +420 602 789 242, vagner@febiofest.cz Tereza Jiravová, t: +420 603 828 429, jiravova@febiofest.cz Prague IFF - Febiofest, Růžová 13, Praha 110 00 Praha 1