The jubilee 20th edition of Pragueshorts, held under the auspices of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, has now published its complete program of films. From 25 February to 1 March, Prague’s Světozor, Bio Oko, Ponrepo and Kino Pilotů cinemas will show more than a hundred short films from around the world.
As in the past, the program features three competition sections. The largest of these, the International Competition, will show twenty-eight films from twenty-three countries – a diverse selection that includes films previously screened at the world’s most prestigious festivals. The LABO section will show ten experimental works that all share an attempt at pushing the limits of cinematic expression. And rounding out the three is the National Competition with fifteen distinctive representatives of contemporary Czech short film.
The festival’s opening ceremony will this year be held in a retro style, and audiences can also look forward to the usual fixtures in our program: the Brutal Relax Show (an evening of disturbing and frightfully funny films with emcee Jan Špaček) and our afternoon block for families, Pragueshorts for Kids.
Additionally, the festival presents several thematic programs: the self-explanatory This Is Argentine Short Film; a section dedicated to pioneering filmmaker Andrea Gatopoulos titled Digital Prophecies; and Hot Topic: Match Me If You Can, a special afternoon program on the subject of contemporary dating. Our collaboration with P*fest, a newly founded festival of alternative pornography, has produced the section Pragueshorts Meets P*fest, which presents the lesser-known face of this genre – playful, inclusive, awkward, and surprisingly creative.
From 1 to 22 March, the festival continues online with selected films from the program available on the KVIFF.TV streaming platform.
