The sprawling gathering will be opened by Woody Allen’s Rifkin’s Festival today (September 17) and brought to a close by Florian Zeller’s The Father on the 24th.
Woody Allen’s Rifkin’s Festival will have the honour of opening the 28th edition of the Prague International Film Festival – Febiofest (17-24 September), while Florian Zeller’s Academy Award-winning The Father will close the gathering.
First and second feature films will be locking horns in the main competition, including Ana Rocha de Sousa’s immigrant drama Listen, Amanda Kernell’s follow-up film to the award-reaping Sámi Blood, Charter, and Ruth Meehan’s debut, The Bright Side.
The festival is dedicating a separate competition section to comedy films, which this year includes Michela Andreozzi’s generational clash in Parents vs Influencers, Mouloud Achour and Dominique Baumard’s romp Patrick & Sebastian vs the Fake News, and Icíar Bollaín’s Rosa’s Wedding.
Furthermore, the Amnesty International Febiofest Award will be given to a film dealing with freedom, human rights, freedom of speech or the fight for a dignified life.
The festival’s sprawling structure encompasses a variety of non-competitive sections, such as Eastern Delights, dedicated to Central and Eastern European cinema, the Balkans, the former Soviet Union and the Middle East, which will introduce Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s darkly comic drama Ulbolsyn.
The Generation section presents films for the whole family, including Charlène Favier’s drama Slalom, while there is a genre sidebar called Planet Dark and a showcase of contemporary queer cinema in Queer Now.
The Panorama section has been divided into two parallel programmes: Icons, dedicated to works by renowned filmmakers, such as Hungarian auteur Bence Fliegauf and his latest effort, Forest – I See You Everywhere; and New Currents, celebrating young creators of the likes of Sandra Wollner and her disturbing speculative fiction title The Trouble with Being Born.
Separate programming sections are reserved for works by the new generation of female filmmakers, Girls in Film, documentary films, episodic oeuvres, and retrospectives focusing on Slovak actress Božidara Turzonovová, Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-Eda, Irish-British producer Mike Downey and Norwegian cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen.
A new section has been added for the upcoming 28th edition: VR Cinema, with virtual-reality and 360° works spanning the three thematic areas of Anima, Art, and Docu.
The festival will be premiering a contingent of new Czech films led by Zdeněk Jiráský’s period drama Kryštof; Rudolf Havlík’s chamber adventure-drama A Minute of Eternity, shot amidst extreme conditions in Iceland; the feature-length directorial debut by Emil Křižka, Repulse, straddling horror and thriller; the first-ever Czech-Swiss co-production, Lost in Paradise; and the eagerly awaited documentary about famous Czech singer Karel Gott, Karel.
The full line-up of the 28th edition of the Prague International Film Festival – Febiofest is available here.
