08/06/2006

Producer Ondrej Trojan (Total Help Art) and director Jan Hrebejk will let their new film Beauty in Trouble (Kráska v nesnázích) compete in the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (June 30-July 8) after all.

The decision means a sigh of relief for Karlovy Vary president Jiri Bartoska, who has been campaigning hard with the Audiovisual Producers Association (APA), led by Trojan and Negativ’s Pavel Strnad, over the form of their continuing protests over the recent rejection of a new film law by both Parliament and the president.

Bartoska and a few others made it clear that the withdrawal of Czech films from local festivals is “not the right way” while the APA had previously insisted on a more hardline stance with Trojan, threatening to withdraw Hrebejk’s film from the internationally acclaimed festival.

Last week, producers withdrew their films from the Zlin International Film Festival for Children and Youth, including Strnad, who cancelled projections of Bohdan Slama’s Something Like Happiness [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bohdan Slama
interview: Pavel Strnad
film profile], winner of the Golden Shell at last year’s San Sebastian Festival.

Beauty in Trouble is one of three Czech films in competition at this year’s 41st edition of Karlovy Vary and the only one that was in doubt because of the protests.

Dan Wlodarczyk’s The Indian and the Nurse (Indian a Sestricka) will compete in the East of the West section and Miroslav Janek’s documentary Kha-chee-pae (Chacipe), a look at life in a children’s institution through cameras that the children operate, in the documentary competition. “I never thought even for one minute of taking the film from the festival” said producer Viktor Schwarcz of Cineart about Wlodarczyk’s film.

Bartoska and APA did not rule out agreeing on a common position and a more moderate form of protest during the festival.