The jubilee 20th Pragueshorts announces its program for the National Competition

The Pragueshorts Film Festival, which this year is being held for the 20th time under the auspices of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, has announced the films in its National Competition – fifteen examples of short domestic filmmaking spanning a wide range of styles and genres. Audiences can look forward to several Czech premieres, candidates for the Czech Lion awards, and films previously shown at international festivals in Berlin, Rotterdam, and Annecy, among others.

Czech premieres and candidates for the Czech Lions

Three films in the National Competition are being shown as Czech premieres. Just a short time after its first screening at the Berlinale, Andrea Szelesová is showing her poetic animated Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe!, a film inspired by ancient mythology and Minoan frescos. Two distinctive films are coming to Pragueshorts straight from the festival in Rotterdam: Marie Lukáčová’s rap fairy tale Orla and Viera Čákányová’s ironic spark of a film, Greetings from Rhodos, a cinematic postcard from an island ravaged by destructive fires. Director Vojtěch Novotný, meanwhile, is showing the world premiere of his thriller Empty Places, starring Petra Špalková and Ondřej Malý.

Naturally, the selection also includes several candidates for the Czech Lion awards. Terézia Halamová’s Dog and Wolf, nominated in the categories of Best Short Film and Magnesia Award for Best Student Film, is a subtle and stylistically self-assured character study of the stripper Rudolf. Two nominations – for Best Animated Film and the Magnesia Award – also went to Philippe Kastner’s animated film Wolfie, the tale of a perfectionist illustrator who unwittingly creates a little wolf with an ink nose. Also vying for Best Short Film is director Vojtěch Konečný with The First Patrol, in which the lives of two police officers from a small town are shaken by a mass shooting.

A wide range of styles and genres

Šimon Lovecký’s A Dream of Summer captures rare moments of tenderness and closeness capable of cutting through human solitude. Documentary work is represented by two films in this year’s National Competition. Sarah Lomenová’s meditative Amnion looks at three generations of women brought together by shared pain and a soothing embrace, while What If We Run Out of Stones? by Nora Štrbová playfully shows that even minerals can be full of life. And Tomáš Rampula makes a repeat appearance at Pragueshorts with the experimental Snowblind, which was inspired by the literary work and dark tone of Edgar Allan Poe.

The program culminates with four outstanding animated films. One of the internationally most successful shorts of the past year was Eliška Jirásková’s Better Man, which had its world premiere at the prestigious festival in Annecy. The film takes a light-hearted look at the world of bodybuilding and muscle enthusiasts. Also shown at Annecy was Bára Anna Stejskalová’s musical melodrama 9 Million Colors, which tells the unlikely story of love between a self-assured shrimp and a blind fish. If you ever wondered what a wild pop-cultural horror-movie interpretation of the Slavic folktale The Enormous Turnip might look like, David Šourek and Jáchym Štulíř’s The Beetroot has the answer. And Anastázie Rainischová’s playful, mischievous, and disturbing Sleep Dreams takes you on wild ride through a surreal world full of balloon figures.

The three-member international jury will present an award for Best Czech Film, which comes with a financial reward of 2,000 euros from the competition’s partner, the Medicine fashion label. The jurors can also choose to present a Special Jury Mention. The director of the winning film will receive in-kind post-production services from Beep and PFX for his or her next project.

The twentieth anniversary Pragueshorts festival will take place from 25 February to 1 March at the Světozor, Bio Oko, Ponrepo, and Kino Pilotů cinemas in Prague, and from 1 to do 22 March online on the KVIFF.TV streaming platform. The complete program of nearly one hundred short films will be published in early February. Besides the three competition sections – the National Competition, the International Competition, and the LABO section dedicated to experimental films – audiences can also look forward to the popular live moderated Brutal Relax Show, a special program for parents with children, and other thematic programs.

Pragueshorts Film Festival is organized with the support of the State Audiovisual Fund and the City of Prague. The festival’s main partner is the ČEZ Group.