THE SECOND annual Minority Film Festival will take place September 16 to 19 in Bratislava. Movies will screen at the Mladosť cinema and the Czech Centre.
There are four screenings a day. Each screening is comprised of local and foreign documentary and feature films, and short movies from Slovak and Czech television productions. Entrance to all screenings is free. The films will be opened with introductions and followed by discussions.
The Oscar winning tragi-comedy depicting a relationship between a Jewish grocer and a man serving the regime during the Holocaust, Obchod na korze (The Shop on Main Street), will officially open the festival September 16 at 20:00. Film director Juraj Herz, who assisted Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos on the film, will come to introduce it.
Other Slovak films will include Vladimír Bahna's 1965 drama Námestie sv. Alžbety (St Elisabeth Square); Karol Plicka's 1937 documentary Za Slovákmi od New Yorku po Mississippi about Matica Slovenská's historical tour of the USA; and Dušan Hanák's 1976 Ružové sny (Rose Dreams) containing motifs from life in a gypsy settlement. Among the foreign movies are a Palestinian film, a Russian war comedy, a Spanish-French musical with a Roma theme, and Emil Kusturica's comedy Crna mačka beli mačor.
Musicians performing a minority music genre will break the film-screening marathon. Croatian zither band Črip will hold a concert on Friday, September 17. One day later the Keltieg group, which draws inspirations from Celtic music, takes the stage. On Sunday, the limelight will belong to the Pressburger Klezmer Band.