Films

Czech Short Films 2023

21 January 2023

Film Industry Short Films

Czech Short Films 2023

Film Industry Short Films

Czech Short Films 2023

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The new collection of Czech Short Films is ready to be explored by film industry players worldwide. Film curators, distributors, sales agents, broadcoasters or VOD representatives are invited to check the best short films from Czech Republic in one place. Films which already premiered at big festivals like Berlinale, Locarno and others, as well as the new films waiting for their international release. 

Czech Short Films 2023 collection promotes Czech short films and young talented filmmakers to international film industry professionals. It also offers industry players the shortcut to the best content from the country, to help them find suitable films in no time. There are fiction, documentary and animation films as well as experimental shorts among the 14 selected titles. The selection was carefully curated by our expert film industry jurors: Martin Horyna & Lenka Tyrpáková (Pragueshorts), Pavel Horáček (Anifilm), Alexandra Gabrižová (Midpoint Institute) and Vítězslav Chovanec (Czech Film Center).

There are two children's animated shorts with the label Generation Kplus Berlinale. While the colourful poetic story Suzie in the Garden started its journey in 2022, subtly toned and personal Dede is Dead will premiere this year in February at the festival. Another animated film for children, The Goose, has started its journey at Premieres Plans Angers in France. All of these films are available to please the youngest audiences around the world in 2023. 

Animation is not only made for children in the Czech Republic, therefore there are two animated shorts for adult audiences as well included in the collection. At Spiral's End is an animated documentary about alcohol addiction, which premiered in Annecy, while Carp Xmass is a little bloody Christmas tale, based on a true story of a typical Czech Christmas dish - the carp. Apart from classical animation, the collection includes also an animated VR film for the first time. Darkening by Ondřej Moravec, world-premiered in Venice, is an autobiographical interactive film, which is revealing how the world is perceived by someone with depression. The viewer will use his own voice to tackle the issues and move on with the story. The VR film cannot be played in the CFC's video library, we recommend using the contact on the film's page to ask for access to the immersive film. 

Several films are crossing the borders between categories of fiction and documentary film. A silent experimental film Asterión by award-winning director Francesco Montagner premiered in the Pardi di Domani: Corti d´autore competition at Locarno and shows a man and a bull in their common attempt to defeat death. Shells by Marie-Magdaléna Kochová, which is her second film selected for the Czech Short Films collection, shows a former dancer exploring the limits of his body affected by ageing. And Commander by Viliam Dočolomanský uses fragments of authentic chats of a neo-Nazi group and transfers them into the real-world conversations of little children. 

Another documentary film Serpentis, observing life in a city whose collective unconscious is interconnected by a hissing industry snake, is looking for a world premiere, while Everything's Fine, Potatoes in Line, awarded at Warsaw IFF, brings us to the Czech-Polish border, where the locals found their own way how to deal with a political conflict - in a potato salad contest. 

Fiction films in the collection focus on topics of youth, violence, and migration or take a critical look at the Czech healthcare system. That is the case of Credentialing, a story of a young inexperienced doctor, who left alone by his colleagues at night before Christmas, has to fight for a child's life. This film is available to be screened at the world premiere as well. The other two fiction films have already started their festival run in 2022. Vinland was screened as a part of the Future Frames program at Karlovy Vary IFF and tells the story of a Georgian teacher, who finds a seasonal job in the West. But the reality is different from what he expected. Rites by Damián Vondrášek was screened at Cottbus Film Festival and explores the initiation ritual of a street gang. 

All the films are available to watch upon confirmed registration and are intended for film professionals only. Registration is possible through the "Film Preview" button in the profile of each film on the page of Czech Short Films 2023. The collection is not open to the public, cannot be used directly for public screening or streaming and is not available for private research. Please, use your work email address to request permission to watch the films. The confirmation process lasts up to 24 hours and is granted only to a proven target group of film professionals. In case of any questions or requests, please contact Vítězslav Chovanec at vitezslav@filmcenter.cz

Czech Film Center
division of the Czech Film Fund promoting Czech cinema worldwide

Email: info@filmcenter.cz
 

 

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