“We are launching a celebration for all scientists, filmmakers, far beyond the idea of what a film festival means. As every year, AFO will offer many interesting sections. One of them celebrates 450 years since the founding of Palacký University. We will focus on the original form of the Jesuit college, which at that time meant the most progressive part of education. We will investigate how this legacy was able to be transferred to the present,” said Andrea Hanáčková, vice-rector of Palacký University, at Tuesday’s press conference.
Echo – an echo
The main theme of the 58th edition is echo. “When preparing the program, my team and I started on a general level, where we understand the festival as an echo of science, and thanks to our audience, that echo is getting louder and louder. We continued on a more personal level. We had a dialogue with ourselves, we thought about where we are and what we have been experiencing in recent years. From this, for example, the Identity or Trembling sections were created, where we deal with various traumas,” program leader Ondřej Kazík presented part of the rich program.
Fields ranging from astronomy to ethology to art history are represented among the images. Space will be given to television productions, Oscar nominations and films pushing the boundaries of documentary storytelling. The main attraction is Timekeepers, which deals with the human effort to capture time – from stone circles to alarm clocks and cuckoo clocks to the Prague Astronomical Clock, or the film tribute to the beauty of Greenland, the documentary The Last Man.
Photo: AFO Olomouc
Czech short animation 3-2-1 Start! tells the story of Elon the hamster, who is on a big adventure.
Guests of the Academia Film Festival Olomouc (AFO) will be, for example, cosmologist and professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona Chris Impey, who will also present his new book about exoplanets at the Metropol cinema on Saturday, April 29, or director Sonya Pemberton, winner of the Emmy Award and one of Australia’s leading female producers.
He will bring images How to tame covid and Vitamania: The shine and misery of vitamins. At the end of the festival, he will receive the Award for a significant contribution to the popularization of science.
Three categories
Expert juries will select the best works in three categories: international, Czech-Slovak and short film competition. This year’s novelty is a section on the popularization of science on Czech Television, which is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year.
“The festival will bring 300 program items, and since we are working with the theme of mirrors and echoes, the winner will receive a silver and fully functional krasoscope from the glassmaker Martin Hlubuček,” festival director Eva Navrátilová showed the award to journalists.
The organizers devote considerable space to children and families, the accompanying program was created in cooperation with the science center Pevnost poznání and the Olomouc Art Museum.
Trailer for the movie Titina, the Polar Dog.Video: Association of Czech Film Clubs
“I would recommend the wonderful Norwegian film Titin about the canine arctic fox or the beautiful Czech film 3-2-1 START! about a hamster who wants to fly into space. In my opinion, this will be a hit with the audience,” Ondřej Kazík says from the program and invites to the Czech premiere of the Australian act Tajemstvi trusu or to the Archivní horečka channel.
Also worth mentioning are exceptional films such as Eruption of Love, Without the Sun, Under the Surface, Your Centenary Life, Searching for the Ninth Planet or Everything Living.
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