For the fifteenth year, Prešov will host POCITY Film Festival, which from 10 to 16 October will offer Prešov residents top film production and meetings with filmmakers. This time, the festival will be held in the Cinemax Novum cinema, the Wave independent culture centre, the Regional Gallery and the Stromoradie club. The programme includes more than 30 screenings, discussions with filmmakers and the award ceremony of the Grain of Salt for the best short film.
The best and most up-to-date of contemporary Slovak filmmaking will be presented in the Our Feelings section. One of the main guests of the festival will be Peter Kerekes, who will personally introduce his new documentary Wishing on a Star. Director Iveta Grófová will bring his latest work to Prešov Emma and deathhead, which is the Slovak national nominee for the 97th edition of the prestigious Oscar Awards. The director offers an innovative approach in Slovak film György Kristóf, who will perform his dystopian dance film Zenith. The audience will also see in the preview a slide Via Slovakia, which will be personally presented by the director Víťazoslav Chrappa, producer Peter Nevedal and the main protagonist Slavomir Duchovic. The film tells the story of an extraordinary hiker, who during 82 days walked the longest hiking trail in Slovakia, covering more than 1870 kilometres along the country's borders. David Kollar from Prešov will present the film MIKI, for which he composed the film music. Architecture lovers should not miss the very powerful documentary experience offered by Architecture of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic 58-89. The programme will also include Jiří Mádl's successful, historical but very topical film Waves.
Feelings from the World is the name of the section that will allow viewers to discover current films and themes from Europe. An eloquent, sharp and shocking satire Substance is enjoying not only the favour of the professional public, but also international interest at festivals and promises to become one of the most talked-about events of the season. To the end of the world, Viggo Mortensen's second directorial effort, is a timeless romance between two fatally stubborn lovers. A neo-noir romantic thriller Blood on the lips in turn offers an unconventional love story of a gym operator and a budding bodybuilder. A gripping and suspenseful story that will appeal to all audiences, this black and white sports film Tatami. It is about an Iranian judoka, Leila, who receives an ultimatum from the Islamic Republic during the World Championships: she must fake an injury and lose or be branded a traitor to the nation. Leila is faced with a life decision - should she submit to the Iranian regime or keep fighting for gold? A powerful and entertaining film about female strength and solidarity, which broke all attendance records in Italy is also a film Also tomorrow is the day. The end of the festival will belong to an exclusive preview of the audience hit from the festival in Karlovy Vary For ever and ever. The debut feature from Norwegian screenwriter and director Lilje Ingolfsdottir is a multi-layered character study of women that freshly explores contemporary ideas about romantic relationships, relationship equality and female power. A strong female character is also Eve from the film Supervisor, which is a disturbing and thoughtful psychological drama. The film is a meticulous directorial effort by Gustav Möller, whose previous film, the equally spatially contained Distress Call, struck a chord with audiences around the world.
“The main partner of the festival this year is the Prešov company Fecupral, dedicated to the processing and recycling of waste. Thus, we were able to enrich the programme with films with environmental overlap. Popular Icelandic comedy Woman in the fight about the tough and uncompromising Halle, fighting the industrial giants that are destroying the Icelandic landscape and the first Slovak-Hungarian animated film for adults Plastic or with a strong ecological message,” approached programme dramaturg Nina Šilanová. The section Feelings X Fecupral will be complemented by a short documentary film Bordalo II: A Life Of Waste depicting an intimate portrait of Portuguese street art artist Arturo Bordal. Through his famous "Trash Animals" sculptures, he draws attention to the extent of human recklessness and its impact on the environment.
The festival did not forget about the youngest viewers either, through the film A cat's odyssey, which also touches on the future of the planet. The film offers beautiful animation and a story about animals on a boat that have to adapt to a new world in a flooded city. The film is wordless and suitable for even the very youngest children.
The last section offered by the festival is Feelings of Neighbours, where the audience will see distinctive Polish films: the absolutely essential European film of last year by Agnieszka Holland Border a Peasants - a feature film, which is animated in the manner of an oil painting, which will be screened at the Regional Gallery in Prešov together with a Czech documentary I am not yet who I want to be,offering an intimate portrait of the well-known Czech photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková, awarded the title of Personality of Czech Photography, subculturally referred to as the Czech „mother of Snapchat“. A surprise for the audience will surely be PSO Grand Final - a time-lapse documentary about an extraordinary musical ensemble that takes to the big stages and is at the same time a personal testimony of ordinary young people about the world around us.
