Media - Czech and Slovak Film Festival of Australia -

MELBOURNE/NAARM, AUSTRALIA, September 10, 2024 –

The Czech and Slovak Film Festival of Australia (CaSFFA) boasts a varied lineup for its 12th annual festival, featuring 25+ films and 20 Australian Premieres. Returning to Melbourne and Adelaide, this year’s edition is set to be the festival’s largest. Four works direct from Karlovy Vary (March to May, The Hungarian Dressmaker, The Gardener’s Year and Our Lovely Pig Slaughter), the Cannes official Weeds, and the Berlinale documentary I’m Not Everything I Want to Be are among this year’s standout titles.

Martin Pavol Repka’s debut, March to May, awarded a special mention at the Karlovy Vary, will open the festival on Oct 10th in Melbourne and November 1st in Adelaide. The comedy The Aristocrats will close the festival. Alongside the contemporary films in the program, which includes Locarno Film Festival winner Nightsiren, the children’s breakout features She – Hero, and Tony, Shelly and the Magical Light, CaSFFA also delivers two classics from the great Czech animator Jiří Barta, with a screening in both cities of his 1982 short film The Vanished World of Gloves alongside his 1986 masterpiece The Pied Piper, both films presented in their recent digital restorations.

“We present debut films by new filmmakers and the latest films by old CaSFFA favourites. We walk into the world of fiction, follow the path of non-fiction, and traverse the zones of animation and experimentation,” Alexander Back, the festival’s artistic director, says. “This year’s program is guided by the theme of Labyrinth,” Alexander adds. “Unlike a maze containing many forks and dead ends, a labyrinth has a single continuous path. Walking this mythic track, one slowly moves towards the centre of a thing. The winding labyrinth of our 12th year is not a path of one kind — we follow the dark and twisted trail, visit paths decorated with magic, ones built by love, and paths dizzyingly unbalanced. What draws these trails together is the sense that one can get both lost and found in Czech and Slovak cinema.”

This year, CaSFFA will also continue its enduring partnership with the Melbourne Cinémathèque, co-presenting Jiří Menzel: Making Comedies Is No Fun, a three-week retrospective on the inimitable New Wave director. The film will screen from September 25th to October 9th at ACMI.

CaSFFA’s list of sponsors and partners for 2024 includes Sense Creative Advertising, The Foreigner Brewing Company, Mr Moto, Becherovka, Vanguard Luxury Brands, Mattoni & Magnesia Mineral Water, Gourmet Czech, The Embassy of the Czech Republic in Canberra, Consulate General of the Czech Republic in Sydney, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, Consulate General of the Slovak Republic in Sydney, Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, Burnside City Council, Czech Film Fund, Australian Cultural Fund, NFA, Classic Cinemas, Lido Cinemas, The Regal Theatre, Europa Europa Film Festival, Melbourne Cinémathèque and Vodafest.

You can connect with CaSFFA via their social channels Instagram and Facebook, or by subscribing to their newsletter. For more information about the festival, visit https://casffa.com.au/.

For CaSFFA press inquiries and interview requests, please contact Amelia Leonard at amelia@casffa.com.au.

CaSFFA Media Release 2024 (PDF).