Day 1 – Friday 4 September - A roadmap for cruising the Czech Republic
Can a festival survive without fireworks? Oh yes, it can, but why would it? The fireworks on the Zlin Film Festival opening night are every year a magnificent sensation, dedicated to the inhabitants of this modest Czech city.
This year the festivals owes even extra gratefulness to the local residents. They always bring a festive vibe to an event that is deeply entwined with the lives of families and children across the entire region. But now that international guests remain almost completely absent in the festival scenery, the entire festival atmosphere and the load factor of the cinemas rests on the shoulders of the locals. Only a few reckless intruders have travelled in from abroad to experience the festival on-the-spot.
Together with my traveling companion Felix I arrive in Zlin after a two-day journey, that we made because not for the world we would want to miss a single Zlin festival edition. And also because we want to convince you that the festival circuit is not dead, and that it is worth to keep planning and organizing festivals, also in a physical form, with a real audience, real guests, real events. One week long, the Zlin Film Festival will prove that this actually can be done.
From a distant past I remember a trip with my girlfriend by car to Marseille, the then criminal capital of Europe. As soon as we saw the first signposts on the highway, the car filled with a strange tension. We closed the windows and locked the doors from inside, as if danger lurked around every corner. Only later I realized how silly and pointless our paranoia had been. A similar feeling comes over me on the way from Belgium to Zlin. We looked up coloured zones on online maps, we packed our luggage with large stocks of face masks, … On the German highway a flickering sign warns us that we are approaching the disaster area, this Sodom & Gomorrah called Czech Republic. We recite our codebook of festival rules: no hugging with festival friends, no kissing, … Rigorously, we will set a good example!
In my work over the past months I almost pretended that Covid 19 didn't exist. I don't feel like writing every article in the conditional tense: “if we can ever see this film at a festival again, well… if there ever comes another festival, well… if humanity ever might be interested again in trivialities like children's film,… ” But in a blog about festivals in troublesome times, the virus simply can’t be ignored. On the contrary, I should convince you that festivals are possible and meaningful despite the threat. So I have to be extra careful. How stupid would it be to read on the festival website: “Author of corona-related festival blog admitted to hospital in Zlin…”?
Since we don't feel like traveling by plane, Felix invited me to take a ride to Zlin in his car, the legendary Ford Mustang (that you can admire in all its glory, parked in front of Hotel Moskva all week). We have spread the trip over two days. Bearing in mind the reputation of the motorway between Prague and Brno (as anyone can confirm who was once transported from Zlin to Prague airport and urgently needed to catch a flight), we cross the Czech Republic on side roads meandering from one beautiful village to the other over a picturesque hilly trajectory. (Why all this commotion about the Tour de France? From now on I want to see the Tour of the Czech Republic on television!) The woods are crawling with people picking blueberries - in the village shops the wicker baskets are on sale. Everywhere in the fields are bales of hay, every village seems to be built around small ponds in the green, and all the time we’re passing castles and monasteries. Until we enter the highway after a few hours, and are almost immediately stuck in traffic. At walking pace we stumble further towards Zlin. That highway is such a bad promotion for this beautiful country! I know the Czechs as hard working people, so why don't they get that damn highway finished finally?!? In the opening show, the host Roman Vojtek will refer to it with a smile: “I come from the future, from the year 2080 I travelled back in time to this festival. And oh yes, I can tell you that they have just finished the highway construction works.”
What happens to our good intentions when entering the driveway towards Hotel Moskva? “We still hug,” say the familiar staff members in the welcoming committee. So do we… That doesn’t mean that the festival is nonchalant with precautions! Entrance policy during the opening night is stricter than ever, face masks are mandatory, and in the welcome package (Zlin has always been generous with presents) I find a jar of disinfectant gel. And it’s up to everybody to make his own choice - hugging is not mandatory, however strong the urge may be to embrace each other after such a long absence.
H IS FOR HAPPINESS (you can watch trailer here) is the perfect opening film for an audience of all ages, and in the run-up to the festival, director John Sheedy was extremely helpful with interviews and intro clips - thank you so much! - but during this gala evening, the room was almost exclusively filled with adults, mainly dressed up dignitaries. For the few international festival organizers present, this is a rare occasion to share experiences and expectations. “Hybrid” is the new normal, but the word makes me feel as if I'm the only outsider in a world of illuminati - is there anybody who can explain exactly what this word means and how it will influence the way how I personally participate in a festival?
The AleKino festival this year will be a hybrid event, says Marta Jodko. According to Louise Hojgaard Johansen, the Athens Int'l Children’s Film Festival will go for a full online experience. Both have good reasons to justify their decision. In a test project during the summer, the Athens festival attracted hundreds of children for online screenings, AleKino only counted a few online viewers - they need the physical cinema screenings to keep the festival alive and kicking.
Schlingel is the festival that has the guts to say: we go for the full cinema experience, even with all the restrictions, like for instance foreign guests not being allowed to watch films together in the cinema with local kids. (Also here in the Zlin school screenings, international juries are as much as possible separated from local young audiences.) But what sticks with me is the plea of Schlingel director Michael Harbauer: online watching makes our scope bigger and broader than ever, but it narrows down our world, until we ultimately are only at ease with our own family in our own home. Real exchange between countries, between cultures, between people, is only possible when travelling and meeting each other, not only on the screen but also in person. Immediately I remember why I came to Zlin and wanted to mingle as a festival intruder among the local audiences. Because not only the films belong at the festival, but also the people. I am pleased that the Zlin Film Festival has had the courage to take up that challenge, and I am happy to be a part of it. Not only because that way I can hang out on the terrace of the Irish Pub in Hotel Moskva until late at night with beloved friends from the industry (how nice to see them again!) but because only right here, I can hear the beating heart of the youth film industry.