Programme Team
Martin Ciel
The section Love and Anarchy coordinator
Martin Ciel (1963) is a film theorist and critic. Having worked at the Slovak Academy of Sciences and the Film Institute, he now holds a position as a professor of film theory (Doc. PhDr. PhD.) at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. He has published a number of theoretical studies and articles in scholarly journals and anthologies, along with three stand-alone monographs: Film: Illusion and Action (Film. Ilúzia a akcia), The Scholarly Reflection of Film in Slovakia (Odborná reflexia filmu na Slovensku) and Moving Pictures (Pohyblivé obrázky). He has lectured at universities and scholarly institutions in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Belarus and the USA, and has collaborated with several international film festivals. His main focus is on independent and experimental film.
Ivana Petríková
The section Late Night Show coordinator
Ivana Petríková (b. 1975) earned a master's degree in 2002 from the Film Department at the Film and Television Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. While still a student, she was involved in the preparation and organisation of a variety of film festivals and presentations in Slovakia. After completing her studies, she continued and expanded her sphere of activity to include film festivals outside Slovakia (Umeå IFF in Sweden, Jakarta IFF in Indonesia). Since 2005 she has worked in the programme department of the Art Film Fest International Film Festival in Trenčianske Teplice and Trenčín. She is coordinating the section Late Night Show for the second time.
Martin Kaňuch
International short films competition coordinator
(in cooperation with Daniel Vadocký and Magdaléna Macejkova)
Martin Kaňuch is editor-in-charge of the (print production) editorial department at the Slovak Film Institute. He is also a member of SFI's editorial council and coordinator of the Czech-Slovak Filmological Conference. Since 1998 he has been the chief editor of the filmological magazine Kino-Ikon. In addition, he is a dramaturge at the Four Elements film seminar in Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia. He has been involved in coordinating Art Film Fest's international short films competition since 2002.
Magdaléna Macejková
International short films competition coordinator
(in cooperation with Martin Kaňuch and Daniel Vadocký)
Magdaléna Macejková (b. 1976) graduated from the Film Department at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. Since 2005 she has worked at Art Film Fest as a programme coordinator. Last year she coordinated the section “Dancing 80s”. From 2005 to 2009, she worked as a programme and shipping coordinator at the Bratislava International Film Festival, where she co-coordinated the section "The Other Balkan". She has been involved in coordinating Art Film Fest's international short films competition since 2008.
My motivation:
It fascinates me when in thirty minutes someone manages to capture what lies beneath the surface. I’m still waiting for the short lasting a hundredth of a second that says everything onscreen.
Adrián Žiška
The section Eastern Promises coordinator
(in cooperation with Kristína Aschenbrennerová)
Mr. Žiška currently works at the Slovak Film Institute as manager of the online shop klapka.sk, but he has long been inclined towards the position of cinema programme manager. He managed the Charlie Centrum Film Club from 2005 to last Christmas, as well as the Palace Cinemas multiplex in Bratislava’s Polus shopping centre from 2006 to 2008. He is among the founding editors of the film portal kinema.sk, and he occasionally makes film-oriented contributions to the magazine KINO-IKON and the weekly Pravda. He has been interested in Asian cinema since an early age, and his enthusiasm as a fan eventually determined his professional interests. How did this all start? If pressed to name names, Mr. Žiška mentions Takeshi Kitano and the heroic-bloodshed films of John Woo. He has only himself to blame for having to regularly study Japanese and Korean vocabulary and grammar.
My motivation:
Far-Eastern films have always managed to surprise me, and still do after all these years. If they turn out well, it's an experience almost like when I saw Terminator 2 for the first time in the cinema. I would be very happy if we managed to evoke a similar feeling in Art Film Fest’s visitors, by way of cinematic Eastern promises.
Kristína Aschenbrennerová
The section Eastern Promises coordinator
(in cooperation with Adrián Žiška)
Before it was too late, Ms. Aschenbrennerová took a good hard look at her acting abilities and switched from her intended career as an actress to the only other logical option - that of a film journalist. At the present, she is in her fifth year of studying film theory and history and audiovisual culture at the Philosophy Faculty of Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. She currently writes for kinema.sk, KINO-IKON and occasionally for other publications. In the summer of 2006 she was approached by Adrián Žiška with an offer to write a piece on Korean cinema for the magazine Cinepur. She accepted, and in four days and five nights, she had (re)discovered a new love. In addition to actors Han Suk-kyu and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, she fell for the emotional outbursts of passion and stunningly graceful physical combat. To avoid being distracted by subtitles, she took up Chinese and Korean.
My motivation:
Even though Slovakia hasn't got ideal conditions for the mainstream distribution of Asian films outside of film clubs, I think that this “low” number of potential viewers is nonetheless high enough to warrant the effort in putting together at least a single section for them. I complement Adrián well, partly in the organisational details, but also in film selection (one reason why there aren't any horror films in the section :). In the end, I’m the “bad cop” to his “good cop”.