Editor

The leading Hungarian film event, the 14^th Jameson CineFest awaits the audience in 8-17 September 2017. On the 8^th of September the festival opens its gate with the screening of ‘Shortcuts’ aka ‘Cutting it Short’ with the director, JiřiMenzel and the leading actress, Magda Vásáryova as special guests. The Academy Award winner director is this year’s Lifetime Achievement Aawrd winner, and the actress and diplomat Vásáryova has been chosen as the recipient of the Europe Award, founded last year.

Menzel is one of the most influential figures of the Central European cinema. His first movie ‘Closely Watched Trains’ won the Oscar in 1968. The film ‘Larks on Strings’ shot one year after the Oscar was withheld by censors and released only in 1989 in which year’s Berlinale it won the Golden Bear – something that has been unprecedented before.

“Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! That’s what I call original great humor!” – wrote Kunder to Menzel after the premiere of ‘I Served the King of England’. In a country of ten million people, the film attracted more than one million viewer in the Czech Republic in 2006. It was Menzel’s sixth Hrabal-adaptation. In his films comedy, tragedy, sentimentalism, humor and irony plays together in a way that is only the characteristic of the greatest masters. The legendary director of ‘Capricious Summer’, ‘The Snowdrop Festival’, the Oscar nominee ‘My Sweet Little Village’ and the ‘Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin’ has also played in several films – including some Hungarian ones as well. He is also a well-known stage director.

The leading actress of ‘Shortcuts’ aka ‘Cutting it Short’, Magda Vásáryova was 19 when she played the leading role in the Czech film, ‘Marketa Lazarova’. The three-hours epic is considered by the critics and film historians one of the European masterpieces of the golden years of the 1960s. A few years back, the premiere of its digitally re-mastered copy has been a true headliner. The actress is not only acknowledged for dozens of great roles but also for her career in politics. After the regime change she became a politician and a diplomat, making it up the being Slovakian presidential candidate. She also served as ambassador and state secretary of foreign affairs. The actress and politician speaks several languages and has a truly European point of view. After Juliette Binoche in 2016, she is named Ambassador of the European Cinema by the 14^th Jameson CineFest in 2017.