About festival

Contrary to last year, the second year of the festival Cinepur CHOICE expanded into more programme sections. One of the innovations is an exclusive selection of international video art and Czech experimental film. The films of the Multikino section chosen by Tomáš Pospiszyl erase the boundaries between film and video art. In festivals, video art is usually shown in cinemas that don’t represent its typical environment. Therefore, Multikino in Cinepur CHOICE will be found in galleries of three festival cities. Czech experimental film lacks of its own festival platform in Czech Republic, hopefully that is why its fans will welcome at least partial cross-section of the Czech experimental scene. Dramaturgical selection by Martin Blažíček is dedicated to audiovisual performance influenced by computer algorithms and variation of the genre of road movie in experimental films.

This year we are the happiest about the prestigious section CHOICE 08. Even through overcoming obstacles of financial requirements of foreign distributors and other adversities this programme is composed of original international titles dominated by progressive cinematographic expression. Ten of the films show mini profile of current Argentinean talent Pablo Fendrik represented by a minimalist debut (The Mugger) and by an excellent portrait of disturbed mind (Blood Appears). The main retrospective section is dedicated to living and working legend of international cinematography, French director Claire Denis. Her physical and sensually oriented films are almost unknown to Czech spectators.

It almost seems that Cinepur CHOICE is with its structure and size becoming a traditional festival. Partially it is, however, the original ideal remains the same – to present films and audiovisual production which selection depends only on esthetic qualities of individual films. Doesn’t matter if the product suits the viewer and sponsors or how easily negotiable it could be. Therefore we would like to thank sincerely to State foundation for support and development of Czech cinematography that recognizes the meaning of such festival and supported the author concept of festival with a considerable donation. Last but not least we would like to thank to all that participate on the creation, organization and production of this nonprofit project. Quixotism isn’t exactly the objective of our lives, but sometimes it’s quite nice to realize that not everything must be driven by marketing.

Otto Bohuš, Zdeněk Holý

The festival was officially patronaged by Václav Havel, 1st deputy mayor of the city of Brno MUDr. Daniel Rychnovský and mayor of the city of Olomouc Martin Novotný.