Prague - For the third time Prague plays host to the Short Film Festival which begins in the Světozor art cinema today. It is informally called "Prague Shorts" by its organisers, led by the festival president Jiří Bartoška.
Among this year's attractions offered by the organisers, who just like Bartoška also work for the prestigious Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, will be Oscar winners and films made for mobile phones.
This year's festival poster shows actor Jaroslav Plesl in a tiny bathtub. It is a tradition of s(h)orts - legs of the same actor adorned last year's poster as well.
No Czech films in the competition
This year's competition will offer 18 films, but for the first time it won't include any Czech ones. "It's a real shame, because the competition would be more exciting if we had our colours in the game", said Karel Spěšný, festival program director.
Only the film Cargo from New Zealand can be considered partly Czech, since Czech crew members participated on it.
"In our country, short features are made only by students of film schools or by amateurs", the organisers say.
An advantage of these films is that they offer the chance to try out one's talent "without fear". Therefore they would welcome if Czech film-makers had the same conditions for making short films as those abroad.
According to them, enhancing the production of short features would require the creation of a system of grant financing, and the distribution which could guarantee that films would find an audience.
A chance to see the classic: Oilgobblers
The Czech films will be shown only outside the competition, and they will be represented by four pictures from students of the world-renown Prague Film Academy of Arts (FAMU).
They are Radio Kebrle by Zdeněk Durdil, MB 26 (Marta a Berta 26) by Jitka Rudolfová, Who Dares Wins (Kdo si troufá, vyhraje) by Jaromír Pesr, and Horrible Coincidences (Hrůzné náhody) by Libor Pixa.
The Czech Republic will also be represented in the First Service - Famous in Shorts section which focuses on short films made by famous directors.
This year the audience can see a cult short film Oilgobblers (Ropáci) by Jan Svěrák, an early environmental "mockumentary" from Northern Bohemia, and the only Czech short film ever to win an Oscar (1988). Svěrák also won the award for the best foreign language film in 1996 for Kolya.
A program in the same section will offer films by Michel Gondry or Jean-Pierre Jeunet, the creator of Delikatessen or Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain.
West Bank Story and Leningrad Cowboys
The Panorama section will offer films awarded at prominent festivals, including this year's Oscar winner West Bank Story.
"It's a naughty musical about an Israeli soldier David and a Palestinian girl Fatima who fall madly in love in the middle of the war of two fast food chains from the opposite sides of the ethnic conflict," say the organisers.
The Labo section includes films created with the help of new technologies. The festival also offers sections devoted to South Korean and Finnish films.
A real treat will be a retrospective of short films by Aki Kaurismäki, with favourite heroes of this Finnish filmmaker Leningrad Cowboys.
For example, the short film Those Were the Days tells the story of a Leningrad Cowboy who wanders through the night streets of an unnamed city with his donkey, looking for a spot to rest his troubled heart. And his cooker.
Ultrashorts for mobile phones
Ultrashorts section is a novelty within Prague Shorts and it offers a collection of films for mobile phones with the maximum length of 80 seconds. There you can see also works by directors David Ondříček and Michaela Pavlátová.
Films compete for the main award of 5 000 euros and two special honorary awards. Winners will be chosen by five members of the jury in which the Czech Republic is represented by the musician and much sought after film music composer Jan P. Muchow.
Gondry's cameraman, Jean-Louis Bompont, is also a member of the jury, and he will introduce his new film about the famous director at the festival.
Prague Short Film Festival runs from November 14 until November 18 at Světozor movie theatre just off the central Wenceslas Square. Tickets, priced at 50 Czech Crowns each, are already on sale.
