by Brooke Edge

Only in my tenth month as a Prague resident, I still haven’t experienced a European summer. But it can get pretty hot, especially for the vast majority of us living in flats and working in offices sans artificial cool air. So I’m planning to cool down via an old-fashioned method – parking myself in a refrigerated movie theatre for hours at a time. The megaplexes are certainly good to use for this, and the Czech Republic is slated to get its fair share of big-budget, sheer entertainment, popcorn-munching movies for mindless fun – Shrek 3, Hostel 2, Ocean’s Thirteen, The Fantastic Four 2,the fifth installment of  Harry Potter, and of course: The Simpsons Movie.

Not bad for those looking to enjoy some traditional, if mind numbing, cinematic summer thrils. But July will also include a few summer festivals outside of Prague for those who won’t mind driving for quality.

We mentioned the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival here last month, but the superstar of the Czech fest scene deserves some extra attention. Or maybe it already gets too much. Whatever – here are a few highlights of this year’s event (June 29-July 7):
• The East of the West competition focuses on works from Central and Eastern Europe, to show everyone that the fest isn’t just fawning over the big names it draws these days.
• New films to be featured this year include two directorial stints by Steve Buscemi, the latest from David Lynch and Francois Ozon, and midnight screening sessions of last year’s horror offerings from around the globe.
• This year’s Karlovy Vary IFF, the 42nd annual, will include two retrospectives of points in film history – a compilation of works by three ‘30s-era directors who ushered in Japanese New Wave, Masahiro Shinoda, Nagisa Oshima and Kiju Yoshida; and a look back at auteur directors of the ‘70s “new Hollywood” – Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Peter Bogdanovich and Terrence Malick.

But for those who want to go slightly less hectic than the Czech version of Sundance, the Summer Film School will take place a few weeks later in Uherské Hradiště from July 20-29. Here you’ll still find a ridiculous number of films crammed into only a few days, and plenty of cinema know-it-alls expounding on their theories of what “real” film is, but with fewer crowds and an easier time getting tickets.

Each year the SFS is divided into different cycles of film. The 2007 line-up includes: Man and Old Age, focusing on international cinematic interpretations of the Sphinx’s riddle; Brazilian Film, which is pretty self-explanatory but does claim to be the largest organized presentation of Brazilian cinematography; Caucasian Film, not a John Hughes retrospective but selections from Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan; Personalities and Anniversaries, celebrating actors and filmmakers who would have turned 100 years old in 2007, including Sir Laurence Olivier and Katherine Hepburn. Other highlights include a special screening of Milos Forman films, and 10 Films that School the World of Cinema, with each screening followed by a lecture.

So anyone else who spent the winter taking shelter in the warmth of their local hospoda and isn’t quite ready to cool off by hitting the pool is welcome to bask in the glory of air conditioned cinemas for Hollywood stupidity or more highbrow international fare. After all, central A/C is central A/C either way.

                       previously publish in Provokator print issue 20

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