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.
Coming to this decision was not easy, not to mention how much it pains us to pass this information on to you. After all, the Bratislava IFF is a part of our lives. We are fully aware of the significant standing among domestic film festivals that the festival quickly attained after its founding in 1999. We are proud that our ambition to provide high-quality programming and thus cultivate film audiences and enrich Slovakia’s film culture with an international perspective has resulted in a stable fanbase numbering in the thousands. For this we would like to express our thanks.
However, we have come to a point where our dedication and respect for the Bratislava IFF’s successful, 20-year-long tradition has run up against the increasingly demanding process of finding adequate funding, which has had a negative effect on the festival’s further growth and development.
We want to avoid a situation where the friction between the festival’s ambitions and its actual possibilities under the given conditions becomes so exhausting that we ourselves obstruct, rather than promote, the festival’s subsequent growth. We don’t want to continue just out of habit. We feel, just as you may know from your own lives, that when it comes to the Bratislava IFF, we are standing at a crossroads.
At the same time, our passion for the art of cinema and for shared experiences in dimly lit cinemas lives on. Our deep devotion for film is no less than that of the cinemagoers, those who attend the festivals our colleagues organize with the very same passion. We will maintain contact with our associates in order to share our passion and excitement for the first-rate cinematic art that Slovakia’s other festivals continue to provide audiences.
We trust that it will not be long until we are once again able to welcome you to a great celebration of the art of film, one which will not only proudly follow in the Bratislava IFF’s two-decade tradition, but which will develop it even further in the form of a momentous and contemporary international event in Slovakia’s capital. But before we take this next step, we must pause for a moment to catch our breath…
We trust that our decision will be met with understanding. And we hope that your good wishes will help us bring the 21st edition of the event we all know and love back to Bratislava’s cinemas. As the trailers say, “coming soon to a cinema near you…”
See you at the cinema, friends!
IFF Bratislava Team
