Description and Mission Statement of Art Film Fest
Being the most frequented film exhibition in the country, the Art Film Fest International Film Festival ranks among Slovakia's most significant cultural events, with a growing international reputation. It provides space for not only the latest works of world cinema, but also for significant titles from the history of film, balanced by an extensive presentation of Slovak audiovisual art.
The festival's main goals are to present quality films that resonate throughout the world, to introduce Slovak audiences to films awarded at prestigious film festivals, to provide a forum for members of the film industry, to welcome guests from the silver screen and filmmakers and to promote Slovak cinematography.
Art Film Fest was established in 1993 as the first international film festival of its kind in Slovakia. It was originally aimed at presenting exclusively 'art films', hence the festival's original name, Art Film. During its seventeen-year history, the festival has undergone several reorganizations and has grown noticeably in size. Despite also including some works from mainstream Hollywood production each year, the programme department today still clearly centres on non-commercial, independently made films which focus on developing ideas or exploring new narrative techniques or the outer limits of filmmaking conventions.
Each year in its festival cinemas, Art Film Fest presents films introduced at prestigious international film festivals such as Berlin, Cannes, Venice and Locarno. In this way, the festival gives its audience the opportunity to see outstanding works of cinema that are usually absent from the distribution channels of mainstream Slovak cinema.
Concerning the programme, each year Art Film Fest screens a representative sample of feature, documentary, television and animated films most relevant to today’s world. The festival offers two main competitions. The centrepiece of the festival is the International Competition of Feature Films (films over 60 minutes in length) for a director’s first, second or third feature film. The winning feature-length film in this main competition category gets the prestigious Blue Angel Award together with a monetary prize.
The International Competition of Short Films features short films (up to 30 minutes in length) of any genre (fiction, documentary, animated/cartoon, experimental film). The winning film gets the Blue Angel Award accompanied by a monetary prize.
The films in both competition sections are evaluated by two juries composed of international experts. Many of the filmmakers with films in the competitions personally attend Art Film Fest, which enables communication with the festival's audience not only through their films but face-to-face as well.
The non-competition sections present the works of established artists, significant international pictures, thematically-focused film projects and cult classics that are part of the history of cinema. Currently, Slovakia still lacks a comprehensive presentation of national cinema. For this reason, the organizers of Art Film Fest decided to at least partially fill this gap and to specifically present and promote Slovak audiovisual art. Thus, the new non-competition section called Slovak Season has been added to its fixed programme structure, with the aim of drawing some well-deserved attention to Slovak cinema. The festival regularly hosts many filmmakers featured in the non-competition sections as well. In this way it provides a forum for dialogue with film fans and exchange between domestic and foreign film professionals.
During the past eighteen years, the festival has established a tight network of international contacts and proved its ability to attract engaging personalities of world cinema. Art Film Fest regularly welcomes distinguished guests of the global film scene – stars who light up the silver screen, and creators of masterpieces from behind the cameras. The Special Festival Awards Actor's Mission and Golden Camera are meanwhile a well publicized and popular part of each year's festival. Among the festival's internationally acclaimed guests, Art Film Fest has had the honour to welcome and award stars like Franco Nero, Catherine Deneuve, Geraldine Chaplin, Omar Sharif, Sophia Loren, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Liv Ullmann, Jeremy Irons and others.
In addition to film screenings, every year guests and visitors are provided the opportunity to participate in film seminars and lectures, experience live music performances and attend exhibitions. The festival is filled with press conferences and social events where experts, journalists, producers, distributors and others involved in the film industry meet.
Art Film Fest has a commitment to bringing Slovak audiences back to cinemas and fostering a new generation of film fans. The festival is above all aimed at film professionals, students and both the amateur and professional film public.
In an effort to develop the young generation’s interest in the art of cinema, the festival’s organizers have decided to offer free entrance to the entire festival to students up to 26 years of age. And thanks to our co-organizer, the town of Trenčianske Teplice, such students will also be provided with tent space free of charge. We will thus welcome new blood to the festival, the 18-to-30-year-old “backpacker” set who are a part of every major film festival’s atmosphere, drawn above all by the art of cinema.