15/03/2022 - Unspooling from 16-22 March, the festival will introduce rising talents from the Visegrad region in its short-film competition In the Heart of Europe

The International Film Festival Febiofest in Bratislava, Slovakia, is one of the events that have been severely disrupted by the pandemic. The 29^th, on-site edition (16-22 March) picks up where the festival left off in 2020 in terms of its programming structure. The short-film competition section, In the Heart of Europe, will show works from promising young directors from Central Europe, including a host of emerging talents from the Czech Republic – namely, the award-festooned Anatomy of a Czech Afternoon by Adam Martinec, David Semler’s Must Be Painful and the Cannes-premiered Red Shoes, a dark folk fable by Anna Podskalská, created by painting oil on glass. Peter Hoferica’s even darker comedy Greetings from Nigeria will fly the flag for Slovakian cinema, along with Kristián Grupač’s Leporello of My Paltriness. The competition also includes works from Poland (Natalia Krawczuk’s Metro and Maryia Yakimovich’s Papa) and Hungary (Peter Strickland’s Cold Meridian and Levente Kolcsey’s Break), among others.

The original Slovak Film Country section has been transformed into the In the Heart of Europe – Out of Competition section, and will screen a host of recent domestic (co-)productions, such as Zdenek Jirasky's period drama Kryštof [+see also:
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film profile], Václav Kadrnka's slow-cinema drama Saving One Who Was Dead [+see also:
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interview: Václav Kadrnka
film profile] and films from neighbouring countries, including the Polish period drama Leave No Traces [+see also:
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interview: Jan P Matuszyński
film profile] by Jan P Matuszyński, Kornél Mundruczó’s Evolution [+see also:
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interview: Kornél Mundruczó and Kata W…
film profile] and Kateryna Gornostai’s Stop Zemlia [+see also:
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interview: Kateryna Gornostai
film profile].

The Film+ section will offer a clutch of recent arthouse works, including Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s sonic mystery Memoria [+see also:
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interview: Peter Strickland
film profile]. The Planet Dark sidebar, dedicated to genre output and midnight movies, will screen the Spanish black comedy Advantages of Travelling by Train [+see also:
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interview: Bertrand Bonello
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In light of recent events, the festival has prepared a special section devoted to Ukraine. “Just at the time when we were closing the programme, Putin's army invaded the territory of Ukraine. We had to react to this event, and we thus decided to put together a special section of films that, we believe, will reveal at least a little of the context of this tragic event – whether it's movies that are directly related to contemporary Russia and Ukraine, and violations of fundamental human rights and freedoms, or documents that more broadly reflect the subject of the occupation,” said artistic director Ondrej Starinský. Admission fees from the films in this section, which features Vitaly Mansky’s Close Relations [+see also:
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film profile], Sergei Loznitsa’s Donbass [+see also:
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interview: Sergei Loznitsa
film profile], and Vera Krichevskaya’s F@ck This Job, will be donated to support Ukraine.

For the sixth time, the festival will have an industry sidebar, which will present Slovak projects in the making within the Work in Progress showcase for domestic and international film professionals. The industry event will be held in hybrid form.

The 29^th edition of the International Film Festival Febiofest will unspool from 16-22 March. The full line-up is available here.