Finale Plzen to showcase recent Czech cinema and pay tributes

by Viktor Palák

20/04/2012 - Finale Plzen will for the 25th time present a comprehensive overview of what is happening in Czech cinema, while the selected films will also compete. Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi and film critic and programmer Matthieu Darras will be among those sitting on the international juries.

The festival will also hold a retrospective of Slovak (and Czech-based) director Martin Sulik, who has recently won the Slovakian biennial award for best director for his work on Gypsy and has previously won a number of awards internationally. Milos Forman will also receive a tribute, with the director's cut of Amadeus in the lineup, while the screening of the restored black-and-white masterpiece Marketa Lazarova will commemorate composer Zdenek Liska as well as actor Josef Kemr and production designer Theodor Pistek.

Finale will also hold a set of screenings of the HBO-produced TV series Therapy, based on the world-renowned Israeli series Be Tipul. Petr Zelenka, author of Buttoners (1997), initiated and directed the series starring Karel Roden of Hellboy fame.

With Poland in the spotlight of its international section, Finale will also offer the retrospective of Janusz Majewski, while workshops for students, the general public as well as panels for industry professionals are also scheduled.

The festival, established in 1968 and subsequently postponed until the Velvet revolution, will show a total of 170 films. It will open with the premiere of Strong-headed, a documentary about director Drahomira Vihanova, and run from April 22-28.