HUNGARIAN actor György Cserhalmi receives a festival award.photo: TASR
CLOSING with a screening of all the award-winning films, the Art Film festival in the picturesque spa town of Trenčianske Teplice concludes its 11th year on Saturday June 28. Over the first weekend, it drew a crowd of more than 1,000 visitors, who mingled with the 400 special guests and 100 journalists.
At the opening ceremony, two Slovak filmmakers and Armenian director Don Askarian were honoured with the Golden Camera for their contribution to film. Moreover, Artfilm's director Peter Hledík, was granted the honorary citizenship of the city of Trenčianske Teplice.
Among the most popular sections of the festival was the Art Film Fest, which presented movies honoured at other festivals. Several of them will be released in Slovakia later this year, so festival-goers were offered exclusive previews of hits like Confessions of a Dangerous Mind by actor-turned-director George Clooney. The film, which stars Drew Barrymore, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon, is to hit Slovak screens on July 17. Another July release will be Auto Focus from US director Paul Schrader.
Two other long-awaited premieres were the feature-length documentary Bowling for Columbine, coming out in August, offering a provocative look on the "pathology of violence", and Spike Jonze's Adaptation (scheduled for November), his second collaboration with screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, with whom he worked on Being John Malkovich.
On Friday June 27, the international juries of the festival are scheduled to give away prizes in three categories - Art Fiction, Artefacts, and On The Road. Results are to be announced after The Slovak Spectator goes to print, but can be looked up on the festival's web page www.artfilm.sk.
- Saša Petrášová
