Festival history

The 11th Film Festival

Topic: Junk
Year: 2011

The theme of eleventh seminar is THE JUNK (in Czech Odpad). It provides a wide range of various connotations where the ecological one is the most obvious but not only one. Dramaturgy works with the Czech word which contains verb “fall off” – fall off an individual from the society, from previous intentions – what is quite actual theme in these days. Or junk in the sense of cultural degeneration and kitsch. Our aim was to inquire the extensity of the notion junk through screened movies, held speeches and papers collected in annual textbook/anthology/proceedings (order the almanac on info@filmsokolov.cz).

The 10th Film Festival

Topic: Fiest
Year: 2010

The 9th Film Festival

Topic: Národ – Das Volk
Year: 2009

The 8th Film Festival

Topic: Attraction
Year: 2008

The 7th Film Festival

Topic: The Scam
Year: 2007

Last year, the Film Sokolov 07 (formerly the Sokolov film seminar) had got a new face. After the previous year`s very successful programme with the main topic Normalization, we decided to return from the political discourse to film and its different genres. The main topic was THE SCAM.

THE SCAM presents different meanings to us. First of all, it is a very popular and exciting aspect in thrillers, dramas or comedies. Secondly, we concentrate on films which do the viewer down. It means, that the films appear to be something, they are actually not or as soon as they start developing one genre, they suddenly transfer to totally different genre. Harrowing, intellectual films may be also perceived as some kind of a confidence game, however this is more complicated, which we try to clarify.

Conferences, printed proceedings, screening for high schools, a concert, exhibitions and a wide range of supporting events (about which we informed you at this web site) were the part of the festival.

The 6th Film Festival

Topic: The Normalization
Year: 2006

The 6th Film Festival became a well discussed event among the Czech reviewers and theoreticians. It was the first time ever that the great taboo of Czech film during the period of normalization was mentioned and elaborated. A collection of essays published for this opportunity received critical recognition and was well requested by public libraries and other professional institutions.

The 5th Film Festival

Topic: The Body
Year 2005

This year, we cooperated with the institution Člověk v tísni (People in Need). Thanks to this great cooperation, we were able to bring films from the film festival Jeden svět (One World). These films were screened before the festival opening as a part of the high school education. The American movie Rize (a documentary which follows a fairly typical interview schedule of two related dancing sub-cultures of Los Angeles) and French movie L`Intrus (by famous director Claire Denis) were shown in the Czech Republic for the first (and the last) time at this festival.
One of the accompanying events was the concert of the very popular hip-hop band, called The Bow Wave.

The 4th Film Festival

Topic: The Horror
Year 2004

The 4th Film Festival, called The Horror and collateral worlds took place in the building of the Alfa cinema. You may have seen movies such as Nic nekrvácí věčně (a Slovak movie), British short horror films, a cyber punk Tetsuo (Japan), the first version of the famous The Fly, Re-Animator (by H.D. Loverkraft), Santa Sangre (by Chodorovský) and Demonlover (by Olive Assayas). The seminar was the first outdoor seminar, officially acknowledged by the Department of Film Studies at Charles University. The structure of the seminar was new as well due to the lecture of the Prof. Vlastimil Zuzka (Department of Aesthetics at Charles) and Mgr. Petra Hanáková (Film Studies).

The 3rd Film Festival

Topic: The Musical
Year 2003

The 3rd Film Festival, called The Musical, took place from 10.10. until 12.10. 2003. You may have seen these films: the half-forgotten Czech film Hodinářova svatební cesta korálovým mořem, an Indian musical Awara (1951), famous American musicals – 42nd Street, Top Hat, Singing in The Rain. The finale of the program was a projection of two European films where the filmmakers combined the traditional musical methods with an authentic statement. These films were also shown – Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (by French director Jacques Demy), Golden Eightees (by Belgian director Chantal Ackerman). Petr Marek (a Czech director) introduced his projects in the section The Czech experimental film.

The 2nd Film Festival

Topic: The Sound
Year 2002

The main topic of The 2nd Film Festival, which took place from 11.10 – 13.10.2002, was `The sound in film`. The seminar was divided into three separate parts. On Friday, 11.10.2002, a screening of silent films with a musical accompaniment was shown in the town theatre (films: Die Austernprinzessin, Berlin – the symphony of a city and Mezihra). On Saturday, 12.10.2002, there were projections with discussions and introductions as well as the year before (films: Passion, Toni, The Diamonds of Night by Jan Nemec, Winterschläfer). On Sunday, 13.10.2002, a collection of Czech experimental films and the work of the director Martin Jezek, was introduced. His 8 mm films concentrate on an unconventional use of sound and cutting. The whole project was realized mainly by students and teachers of the Department of Film Studies. A part of the seminar was a collection of essays, in which you find texts referring to the individual films as well as complex studies, dedicated to the first sound film coming during the thirties.

The 1st Film Festival

Topic: The Hero
Year 2001

The 1st Film Festival, called `The 16 mm Hero` took place from 13.10. – 14.10.2001. The most of the films were borrowed from the French Institute and The British Council (La Bete Humaine, Et Dieu créa la femme, Samourai, A bout de souffle, Brazil, The adventures of Baron Prášil, Evita, Our Man in Havana, Memphis Belle). The seminar was organized by the students and teachers of the Department of Film Studies at the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts at Charles University. We tried to analyze the introduced films from the point of view of the poststructural theories (ideological criticism, psychoanalysis, feministic theories, etc.).