Czech films set for grand tour of US

by Viktor Palak

30/04/2012 - Following the success of touring Germany and the UK with recent Czech film production, the Czech Film Center has set out to celebrate its 10th anniversary by introducing the latest and best Czech cinema to audiences in eight US cities.

The selection includes the rotoscope animated Alois nebel [trailer], which has recently opened in France and premiered in Venice last year, Bohdan Slama's Sundance competition film Four Suns as well as Long Live the Family! by Robert Sedlacek, the film that won all the major Czech Film Critics' Awards this winter.

Radim Spacek, the director of the best Czech film of 2009, Walking Too Fast [trailer, film focus], will personally attend, as will Tomas Lunak (Alois Nebel) and Bohdan Slama. Leaving – the first and only film by the late Czech president and playwright Vaclav Havel – is also on the bill, as is The Matchmaking Mayor, a documentary by Erika Hnikova that premiered at the Berlinale in 2010, where it won the Tagesspiegel Readers' Award.

The showcase will start in New York's Brooklyn Academy of Music, where a similar event has already become a tradition. “The screenings [there] have been very successful with audiences, and that gave us the idea to bring the show to other American cities as well,” said Marketa Santrochova, of the Czech Film Center.

For the first time, the selection will also reach Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Chicago, Portland, Washington and Seattle. The event will start on May 8 and will continue until early July.