10th Bratislava International Film Festival
Slovakia, November 28 - December 5 2008
The jury
Thomas Rothschild (Germany), Dejan Petrovic (Serbia), Bálint Szalóky (Hungary), Mustafa Görgün (Turkey), Ladislav Volko (Slovakia)
Awarded films
-
Under the Bombs by
Philippe Aractingi
(Lebanon/ France/ UK/ Belgium, 2007, 98 mins)
Reports
- "Under the Bombs": A Human Scream Against Atrocities By Dejan Petrovic by Dejan Petrovic
- Powerful Works By Bálint Szalóky by Bálint Szalóky
- The Continuous Ascension of Slovak Cinema By Ladislav Volko by Ladislav Volko
- The Rich and the Poor By Thomas Rothschild by Thomas Rothschild
- One Prize Is Not Enough By Ege Görgün by Ege Görgün
The International Film Festival Bratislava is a middle-sized festival taking place in a cinema center inside a huge shopping mall that makes you forget that you are in the capital of Slovakia.
The competition is open to first and second feature films from all over the world. Fourteen films competed at the tenth edition of the festival. The FIPRESCI prize has been awarded along with the four prizes of the main jury for one of the films in competition. In addition to the competition, one is offered several other sections: “Made in Europe”, “Off the Mainstream”, “GMT” (that is films by well-known international directors), “Focus: Music and Film”, “Slovak Films 2008”, “Asylum — Short Films” and “Video Art”.
The festival is well attended by normal audiences. Many screenings were sold out; especially the Slovak films seemed to attract the local cinema goers. The festival offers a convincing mixture of European and World Cinema, of art cinema and of commercial cinema that will reach the theatres sooner or later next year. The Bratislava festival is not the place to go to if you are looking for stars on red carpets, but it is a good suggestion for cinema lovers between Vienna, Budapest and Prague. And though the shopping mall won’t give you much inspiration: it offers the best cappuccino you can dream of. (Thomas Rothschild)