10 ● Ostrava Kamera Oko reveals programme highlights | Gala evening at Barbora Mine and workshops for children at the Plato Gallery

During 25–30th September, the jubilee year of the International Film Festival Ostrava Kamera Oko is going to be held in Ostrava. By the end of August, discounted festival accreditations can be purchased at the GoOut portal, at the ticket offices of the cooperating traditional cinemas (Minikino, Kino Art) and at the cooperating design shop TY Identity (Poštovní 39/2, 702 00 Moravská Ostrava a Přívoz).

The event, which always brings current festival films to Ostrava as well as interesting foreign guests, will pride on a few exceptional programme highlights this year.

The first one is establishing a cooperation with the Plato Gallery, which will host a special pop-up screening of the film Manifesto, an electronic music party in cooperation with the AVB Group – Banket, film presentation of the current Jindřich Chalupecký Award winner – Martin Kohout, as well as two workshops for children. The first workshop will be devoted to making moving toys that preceded the film shooting. The second one will in a funny way teach the youngest viewers how to look at films carefully, and what can we see in films apart from the story. Both are intended for children aged 6-14 years.

This year, visitors can also look forward to seeing many great guests. For example, the film Červená is going to be screened with the personal participation of director Olga Sommerová, camerawoman Olga Špátová and main protagonist Soňa Červená. Norbert Hudec, a cameraman of the Slovak film Nina is also going to be present at the festival. The premiere of the restored film “Žiletky” is going to be another highlight of the programme. It will be held in cooperation with the Association of Czech Cinematographers. Cameraman Marek Jícha will be present at the screening. The festival will present a two-part film Dukla 61 produced by the Czech Television. The film story is based on a real mine accident, in which 108 miners died. The film makers are going to be present at the screening. The festival will be started by a well-known entertaining video clip presentation directed by Aleš Stuchlý, Karel Veselý and Pavel Klusák, this time on the festival topic: The portrait of a lady.

We are also honoured to reveal some names of the competing films. The first film of the official selection is called Azougue Nazaré. It is a debut of Brazilian director Tiago Melo, awarded at this year’s International Film Festival in Rotterdam. The film shows the conflict between the traditional evangelical world and the ritual carnival celebrations Maracatu. The characters aren’t professional actors, they are common people coming from the environment.

In the short film category, Jiří Havlíček and Ondrej Novák’s film Rekonstrukce is going to be screened as a Czech premiere. The film makers are going to be present at the screening. The film deals with a real crime when two youths without any reason tortured a homeless man to death in Pardubice in 2015. The film has recently been presented at the competition category of the Locarno Festival, as the only Czech representative after many years.

The final ceremony will take place in the Barbora Mine which is normally closed to public. The screening of Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s silent film Sunrise is going to be the highlight of the evening. It will be accompanied by live music by the Forma group. The film will be presented in Ostrava for the first time ever.

Traditionally, there will also be a presentation of the latest works in progress such as Tomáš Klein’s Citlivý člověk or Adam Gebert’s Lota Nebeská. This year, lot of attention will be also paid to creative presentations and workshops by students of Polish film schools and Film and TV School of Academy of Performing Art in Prague (FAMU), which will also be open to the general public. In the future, we would like to further develop this cooperation.