58th Zlín Film Festival announced its winners
Zlín Film Festival, the 58th edition of the International Festival of Films for Children and Youth, has reached its final stage. A total of 169 films were screened in its competition sections, the most successful being Supa Modo, The Third Wish or Los Bando. Apart from film screenings, festival visitors enjoyed a large number of supporting events organized at various locations throughout the town. They could meet film celebrities for both home and abroad, including the actors Jaromír Hanzlík, Ivana Andrlová and Maroš Kramár, Anna Geislerová, Simona Stašová, Ivana Chýlková, Josef Trojan, Zdeněk Piškula, the Irish actor Art Parkinson, the American actor Josh Wiggins, the Slovak actress living in Italy Barbora Bobuľová, the Italian composer and conductor Andrea Morricone, or members of 71 delegations who brought their films to the festival.
This year’s festival had 2,600 accredited guests, screenings at cinemas were attended by more than 40,000 spectators.
„Interest in films was again high. This is because we show films that often do not make it to distribution, and so the festival is the only chance to see them,“
explains Markéta Pášmová, artistic director of the festival. The total number of visitors confirms the popularity of the festival.
„It seems that we will go beyond last year’s 125,000 visitors. We still have one more day to go, with the half-marathon runners and their supporters coming to Zlín, in the evening we are planning the last concert and open air film screening which are attended by large crowds of people,“
added president Čestmír Vančura.
The winners of the Golden Slipper awards are Supa Modo (Best Feature Film for Children), Barley Fields on the Other Side of the Mountain (Best Feature Film for Youth) and the Czech animated short Blueberry Hunt (Best Animated Film). The Third Wish, another Czech film, received the Golden Apple Award – the spectators‘ award for best live-action feature, and Wilder Than Wilderness was awarded for best European documentary.
The Golden Slipper was also presented to the Slovak actress Magda Vášáryová and the Czech actor Jaromír Hanzlík for extraordinary contribution to cinema for children and youth, and the Italian composer and conductor Andrea Morricone for contribution to film music.
Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of Czechoslovakia, the 58th edition of the festival was also devoted to Czech and Slovak cinema, another theme was the Austrian Journey providing a brief insight into Austrian cinema, and the new American Teen section, featuring films for young people.
„The next edition of the Zlín Film Festival will take place between Friday, May 24 and Saturday, June 1, 2019,“
says Čestmír Vančura, inviting to the 59th Zlín Film Festival.
„We are already preparing some changes in both the programme and supporting events sections in order to push the festival even further.
Apart from traditional locations, new ones have been added to the festival programme. They included the Retro Zone with a café or the Biograf tent with screenings of silent comedies at the Komenský Park, the Playful Chateau or the Foundation Zone at the Chateau Zone. During the week, selected films were screened in cinemas in Otrokovice, Uherské Hradiště, Kroměříž, Vsetín and Valašské Klobouky. Next week, between June 8 and June 12, the Zlín Film Festival will present itself at the Mikulov Echoes in the town of Mikulov.
For detailed results see the section Press releases.