PROJECTS SUPPORTED BY THE FILMTALENT FOUNDATION ARE SUCCESSFUL BOTH AT HOME AND ABROAD
World premiere at the Berlinale festival, participation in foreign film Competitions, and important nominations for prestigious film awards. These are the achievements of the student film projects supported by the FILMTALENT ZLÍN Foundation from the proceeds of the auction of artistically rendered film clapperboards.
The FILMTALENT ZLÍN Foundation has supported a total of 22 projects (out of 70 entered) to the tune of CZK 1.549 million in 2018. One of these films happened to be the short animated film Fly a Kite (Pouštět draka) by Martin Smatana, which competed this year to get into one of the biggest international film festivals, the Berlinale. The Foundation supported it with the amount of CZK 100,000. This year's Berlinale will be held February 7-17 and the animated film will appear in the Generation section for films for children and youth.
In addition to Martin Smatana's film, many other films that have been supported by the Foundation have also been successful.
"For example, the short animated film The Little One (Malá), directed by Diana Cam Van Nguyen, has awed audiences abroad. It won the main prize in the Expanded Shorts category at the This Human World festival in Vienna and also participated in the competition at the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival. After its success at the Olympia International Film Festival for Children and Young People, it was nominated for the ECFA Documentary Award 2018, which is awarded every year at the Berlinale film festival,"
says Marketa Pášmová, a Foundation board member. She also adds that the short feature film Every Second (Každou vteřinu), directed by Amalia Kovářová, also successfully participated in the international competition of the Ca 'Foscari Short Film Festival in Venice, Italy, and was also admitted to the Short Film Corner at the Cannes Film Festival. Director Bára Anna Stejskalová's short animated film The Fishermen (Rybáři) managed to struggle its way into the narrow set of choices for awards given by the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA). The film also won the Student Jury Award for Best Animated Film at the Uruguay International Film School Festival.
Financial support is provided regularly by the FILMTALENT Zlín Foundation for original live-acted films, animation, and those hovering on the edge of the documentary genre.
The money to support film projects comes from the auction of artistically-rendered film clapperboards, which has taken place during the Zlín Film Festival for 21 years. The upcoming 59th Zlín Film Festival will also reflect on young filmmakers. An auction of hundreds of clapperboard artworks will be held on Sunday, May 26, 2019, at the Congress Center in Zlín, and on Tuesday, May 28, the FILMTALENT ZLÍN Foundation will select the film projects the proceeds of the auction will go to support. Students and fledgling filmmakers can enter their works from February 1 to April 30, 2019.