Festival guide 12.11. (Saturday)

Besides being packed with films and side events, Saturday also offers meetings with filmmakers who have arrived in Bratislava to present their films in person. As usually, our guide will help you find your footing in the ample festival programme and choose what is best for you.

 

Film tips for Saturday

American actor/director Nate Parker’s feature-length debut, The Birth of a Nation (2016), claimed two main prizes – namely Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award – at this year’s Sundance film festival amidst the ultra-white Oscar season. On top of directing it, Parker also wrote the screenplay and rendered the main character of Nat Turner, a priest who in 1831 spearheaded a rebellion of black slaves in Virginia. This revenge drama tells a tale of righteous and bloody punishment for an unforgivable crime. Like Twelve Years a Slave (2013) by Steve McQueen, it is most powerful when it dwells on the particulars of that crime, on the everyday wickedness of 19th-century slavery. Although there are whispers of Academy Award nominations, The Birth of a Nation won’t make it to commercial distribution in Slovakia, which means that the Bratislava film festival offers cinemagoers a unique opportunity to see it on the big screen.
(17.00, Kino Nostalgia)

 

the-birth-of-a-nation-5

 

If you are a fan of Slovak films, don’t miss out on a chance to see an outstanding one today. 5 October (2016) is a directorial debut by an internationally-acclaimed cameraman and photographer Martin Kollár who decided to film his brother as he awaited a potentially life-saving and potentially life-taking surgery. The film is currently having a strong festival run around the world since its premiere made it to the official selection at 45th Rotterdam IFF.

(13.45, Kino Lumiére, K2)

 

5okt

 

One of the most impatiently awaited films in the fiction competition is Dogs (Câini, 2016), a debut by Bogdan Mirica that is a testimony to his rich artistic potential. A drama thriller set by the Ukrainian border in rural Romania, the film premiered as part of Un Certain Regard at this year’s Cannes IFF and won the FIPRESCI award, illustrating the strong continuity of filmmakers from the Romanian new wave.
(20.00, Kino Lumiére, K1)

BOB_1_16408_102712

 

Meet Croatian filmmakers in person

Croatian director Nenad Puhovski who also sits on the jury panel of the Documentary Competition will present his film, Generation of 68 (2016), which forms part of the programme section Focus: Croatia. Following the projection is a discussion that will also be attended by Rade Šerbedžija, Croatian actor and debuting director who received the festival’s own Award for Artistic Excellence in World Cinema at the gala opening yesterday. With this film, the author pays homage to the generation with which he shares his youthful enthusiasm and the notion of a revolution that will change the world based on the motto of “let’s be realistic, demand the impossible”.
(18:00, Kino Lumière, K2)

Generation_68

 

Saturday is no doubt a busy festival day for Mr. Šerbedžija who will also present a late-night screening of Eyes Wide Shut (1999), a cult erotic thriller by the legendary Stanley Kubrick. For his final cinematic opus, Kubrick took the Freudian story set in early 20th century Vienna and transferred it to contemporary New York before Christmas, casting the celebrity couple of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman into the main roles. They are seconded by the likes of Sydney Pollack, Alan Cumming or Mr. Šerbedžija who rendered one of his most memorable Hollywood performances as an oddball owner of a shady costume rental shop.
(22:30, Kino Mladosť)

(22:30, Kino Mladosť)

 

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Side events

Workshop: Elektrosluch Mini City
Elektrosluch™ is a device designed to listen to electromagnetic fields, a hidden dimension of reality that surrounds us. Over the past several years it has become popular among musicians, field recording professionals, world-famous sound designers but also ghost seekers. Workshop participants will be able to assemble their own device (with the help of its inventor Jonáš Gruska) and subsequently test it around the city. The number of participants is limited to 10, which is why we kindly ask to register online.
(13:00 – 17:00, ProgressBar)

(13:00 – 17:00, ProgressBar)

elektrosluch1

 

Student films – Academy of Arts Banská Bystrica, Academy of Performing Arts Bratislava

All festival-goers and those foreign ones in particular have a great opportunity to get familiar with the cinematic language of the youngest generation of Slovak filmmakers. All you need to do is to check out the collection of short films by the students of two leading film academies in Slovakia.
(16:00 and 18:30, Gorila.sk Urban Space)

 

student

 

Concert: Lazer Viking, Sabrehart, Genuine Jacks

The fusion of two seemingly ill-assorted music bands, Lazer Viking and Sabrehart, throws division lines between genres out the window and takes you on a journey to uncompromising schizophrenic pop. They will be followed by Genuine Jacks with their Nirvana-like pop drive echoing the best of the 1960s beat and the 1970s post-punk. The after-party will feature Voodoo Beats and Garage Knight Riders DJs.
(20:00, Fuga)

 

sabrehart-e1476899925322

Dear film fans and supporters of the art of cinema, dear festival visitors, colleagues and friends, With great regret, we must report that the Bratislava International Film Festival will not be held in 2019. Believe us, we were the last ones to want to make this decision, but at the same time, we wanted to
be the first to announce it.

Based on votes cast by the visitors, the Bratislava IFF Viewers’ Choice Award went to Wanuri Kahiu’s second feature film Rafiki (2018) about forbidden love in Kenya.

Awards of the 20th Bratislava IFF 2018

“If you’re lucky enough to make living of something you really love, there is a downside – you don’t do it for fun, it’s a job.”

 

Tomáš Hudák. He studied Film studies (criticism) at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava (VŠMU). He’s a fan of film, music, literature and the art as such. He’s a freelancer, writing film reviews and co-organizing several Slovakian film festivals.

“It’s nice to step out from the bubble of social networks – the binary world of likes/unlikes to be part of the group of totally different people, who are connected only by the skateboards.”

 

Šimon Šafránek. – director, journalist, DJ – multi-genre artist with the sensation of music and word. He’s a freelancer, writing for the Denník N, Hospodářské noviny, Reflex, Magnus etc.

“Films make us better, braver, more romantic and free”

 

Bibiana Ondrejková. A popular theatre and voice actress and presenter. The general public knows her as the Slovak voice of Phoebe Buffay from the TV show Friends. Upon seeing her, viewers will associate her with the Slovak TV series The Defenders (2014), Red Widow (2014), Homicide Old Town (2010) or Block of Flats (2008).

“Actors infuse film with emotion and give it a soul”

Daniel Rihák. A fresh graduate of film directing at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava under the leadership of prof. Martin Šulík. A director of (so far) student films and a number of commercials. His graduation film The Trip recently won the Best Director and Best Sound awards at the Áčko Student Film Festival.

“All women have the power to change things”

 

Ivana Hucíková belongs to the generation of young Slovak filmmakers. She studied at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, from which she graduated in 2015 with her film Mothers and Daughters. A Bratislava citizen from Orava, living and creating in Slovakia and the USA. So far, she has made several short documentary films: Into My Life (2018), Connie & Corey (2017) and is currently working on the development of several film projects as their director, producer or editor.

“Cinema is a great medium for sharing common European values”

 

Dominika Jarečná was born in 1999 in Bratislava. She currently studies Theory and History of Arts at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University in Brno (Czech Republic). She was a member of the Giornate degli Autori jury at this year’s Venice IFF and is a LUX Prize ambassador for the years 2018 and 2019.

Film festival: “It’s a bit like a vacation full of stories”

Alena Sabuchová is a young Slovak author and screenwriter. For her debut collection of short stories Back rooms, Alena was awarded the Ivan Krasko Prize for the best Slovak-language debut as well as the Tatra banka Foundation Young Artist Award in the category of literature. She writes scripts for television and radio, and is currently working on her second book, which will be published next year.

“These films were among the most awarded debut films at this year’s leading festivals”

 

Nenad Dukić. Serbian film critic, who has been collaborating with the team of people preparing The Bratislava International Film Festival for 8 years now. This year (the 20th anniversary of the festival’s existence), he is again the compiler of the Fiction Competition and co-compiler of the section Cinema Now.

The popular section Cinema Now brings an overview of the most remarkable films of the season. Its curators, Nenad Dukid and Tomáš Hudák, have assembled the most interesting movies that have stirred the waters of world’s major festivals. For 20 years, the Bratislava IFF has been supplying the Slovak film public with names, which often become stars of the screen.