16/06/2017 - Park Film Fest aims to shine a spotlight on female cinema and how it reflects the world, as well as showcasing emerging talents from among the ranks of European students

After Slovakia’s longest-running film festival, Art Film Fest, relocated last year (read the news), the empty space in Trenčianske Teplice was not left vacant for long. The tradition of hosting a film festival in the spa town was kept alive last year with the tentative birth of a new gathering. After several tweaks, the makeover is finished, and while the event is sticking to the original concept spearheaded last year by spotlighting and awarding student films in the Great Expectations competition (now expanded from young Czech and Slovakian filmmakers to European talents), this year also brings a major change. The organisers are still emphasising diversity and variety as the gathering’s calling cards, but another dimension of the event, dubbed Park Film Fest, is the focus on films by female directors.

The programmers have decided to bring women filmmakers to the fore in order to inspect how cinema made by females is changing and how it reflects the world. The inaugural Through Her Eyes competition section will present Sofia Exarchou’s drama Park [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sofia Exarchou
film profile], about the lost Greek generation, Iveta Grófová’s Crystal Bear-winning Little Harbour [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Iveta Grófová
film profile], Julia Ducournau’s much celebrated and unorthodox coming-of-age movie Raw [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Julia Ducournau
film profile], Anna Rose Holmer’s The Fits [+see also:
trailer
film profile], developed at the Venice Biennale College Cinema, and the Israeli-French dramedy In Between [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Maysaloun Hamoud
film profile] by Maysaloun Hamoud. The new iteration will also introduce two sidebars focused on national and regional film industries that are under-represented in domestic theatres. This year, said industries will be those of Brazil and Catalonia.

The Park Film Fest will honour Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Zanussi, Czech director Ondřej Trojan and Slovakian documentarian Zuzana Piussi. Zanussi will also hold a master class along with Slovakian documentarian Marek Šulík, while Polish producer-scriptwriter Wiktor Piatkowski and Slovak director-producer Ivan Ostrochovský (Koza [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ivan Ostrochovský
film profile]) will be discussing with emerging filmmakers in the Park Panel parallel event, leading a “production and directing catalyser” focusing on how to create. Piatkowski is also preparing a workshop on how to structure a film, a series or a career in the film industry. 

The Park Film Fest will run from 23-26 June in Trenčianske Teplice, Slovakia.