Already a third year of the five-day International Student Film Festival Fresh Film Fest is starting today.

Fresh Film Fest, the biggest international student film competition in the Czech Republic follows the tradition of more than thirty years of international student film festivals that used to take place in Karlovy Vary. The festival visitors will have a chance to see more than 230 films in five screening halls of Thermal hotel and Panasonic cinema.

“For the competition, have we received 547 films from 39 countries and 86 film schools. That is 100 more movies than last year. There are 63 Czech films, but the biggest selection comes from Germany. A great interest has also been shown from the Visegrad countries, with 143 films in the competition. We have also received films from Uruguay, Singapur, Hong Kong, Cuba, Ekcuador or Estonia.”, said the art director Jan Stehlík.

The Program includes three competitive sections and one informative section Panorama. At least four awards will be given during the festival: Best Film Award in the Feature Film and Documentary section, Theatre Optique Award in the Animated Film and New Forms section, Magnesia Award for the best Middle Europe V4 Selection (films from the Visegrad countries) and a Public Award. Fresh Film jury also has the right to award a Special Jury Award.

 “Fresh Film Fest set foundation to become “Cannes” of the student film for Middle and Eastern Europe, which is also our goal.”, said the festival director Martin Pošta. He added: “We attempt to promote student production from this region and in cooperation with other Czech Film festivals, we would like to draw attention to the European and world productions that usually don’t find its way into the Czech distribution”.

Works from the most prominent film schools will be presented at the festival - Parisian Femis, NFTS - British National Film School in Beaconsfield, DFFB - Film Academy of Berlin, American Film schools UCLA, Columbia and NYU, CCC - Mexican Centre for Film Studies, UCINE - Film University in Buenos Aires, VGIK – Russian Institute of Higher Film Studies and others.

For more info visit www.freshfilmfest.net .

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