Editor

Czech Film Center will be hosting a film festival in Brussels, BEST OF VISEGRAD CINEMA, from March 22-27. To mark the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Visegrad Group, four recent films from each V4 country – the biggest box-office hit, the biggest international success, the best documentary and the most successful film for children and youth – will be screened at the Brusselian Cinéma Vendôme during event. The festival precedes a conference titled: Quo vadis Visegrad?
“The Best of Visegrad Cinema coincides with the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Visegrad Four and was initiated by the International Visesgrad Fund, which announced in August 2010 a call for grant applications for cultural events to accompany the anniversary of the Group's founding. Czech Film Center applied for and received a grant, and thus the idea to hold a grand event in Brussels in the spring of 2011 to showcase the best of Eastern European cinema in recent years was born,” said Markéta Šantrochová of CFC.
Each of the four Visegrad countries are represented by four films: the biggest box-office hit, the biggest international success, the best documentary and the most successful film for children and youth. The movies representing the Czech Republic are: Jan Svěrák's Empties, Jiří Menzel's I Served the King of England, Pavel Kotecký and Miroslav Janek's Citizen Havel, and Marie Procházková's Who's Afraid of the Wolf. Slovakia is represented by: Juraj Jakubisko's Bathory, Juraj Lehotský's Blind Loves, Peter Kerekes' Cooking History and Václav Vorlíček's Falcon King. Poland presents Katarzyna Roslaniec's Mall Girls Jacek Borcuch's All that I Love, Bartek Konopka's Rabbit à la Berlin and Andrzej Jakimowski's Tricks. And last but not least, the best of Hungarian cinema: Dénes Orosz's Polygamy, Attila Gigor's The Investigator, Zsuzsa Böszörményi and Kai Salminen's The Last Bus Stop and Béla Ternovszsky's CATcher – Cat City 2.
A press conference regarding the showcase will be held in the Vendôme Cinema in Brussels at 4 pm on Monday, March 23. Participants include directors Peter Kerekes, Jacek Borcuch, Dénes Orosz and Maria Procházková.
The opening ceremony will take place in the premises of the Permanent Representation to the European Unnion, under the auspices of the Honorable Mrs. Milena Vicencová, Ambassador, Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the European Union, at 5:30 pm on Tuesday, March 22, 2011. Czech Centre Brussels is the partner of the opening ceremony.
Running parallel to the festival, Best of Visegrad Cinema has a special offer on UniversCiné, a Belgian Video-on-Demand portal, offering Czech, Slovak, Polish and Hungarian movies at a discounted rate.
The showcase is organized by Czech Film Center and was supported by the International Visegrad Fund. Its partners are the film institutes in Hungary (Magyar Filmunio), Poland (Polish Film Institute) and Slovakia (Slovak Film Institute). The local partner is Czech Centre Brussels and the VoD portal UniversCiné.
Attached to this press release, you will find a brochure with information on all the movies, including statements by the festival's partners, as well as the screening schedule and official poster. Photographs from the films can be downloaded at CFC's FTP client. More at www.filmcenter.cz/visegrad