19th Pragueshorts Film Festival Begins! Who Will Be On The Jury This Year?

On Wednesday 26 February, the 19th edition of the Pragueshorts International Short Film Festival, organised under the auspices of the Karlovy Vary IFF, will start in Prague's Světozor, Bio Oko, Ponrepo and Kino Pilotů cinemas. The core of the festival consists of three competition sections – National, International and LABO, dedicated to experimental films. The winners of the festival will be announced on Saturday 1 March at Bio Oko as part of the Long Night with Short Film programme. The physical part of the festival continues until Sunday 2 March, when the audience will have the opportunity to see all the winning films at the Světozor cinema. From 2 to 23 March, the festival continues with selected films from the programme on the KVIFF.TV streaming platform. 

The Pragueshorts competition sections are complemented by a special opening programme featuring films by Coralie Fargeat (Oscar nominee for Substance) and Alice Rohrwacher, an evening of B-movies Brutal Relax Show, hosted live by Jan Špáček, a block of films from the early years of Irish actor Barry Keoghan's career, screenings for children and their parents, a thematic screening Hot Topic: My Body where the themes of physicality, identity and self-acceptance will be discussed and a tribute to the art collective NEOZOON. For film professionals, this year's festival will once again feature an industry programme.

Presentation of the festival juries
Films in each of the competition sections will be evaluated by three-member juries. The jury of the International Competition, which will award one main prize, together with a financial reward 3,000 EUR, and two special mentions, consists of a member of the Soundsquare sound team and three-time Czech Lion nominee Michaela Patríková, editor Filip Malásek, nominated for the Czech Lion for editing the film Waves, and actress Alžběta Malá. The films in the National Competition will be judged by Cao Liuying, film professional and founder of the production company Midnight Blur Films, Hungarian film producer Gábor Osváth and screenwriter and director Hilke Rönnfeldt. The jury of the National Competition will award the prize for the best Czech film, which comes with a financial reward of EUR 2,000. The winner of the experimental film section LABO will be decided by musician and composer Amelie Siba, performer and poet Elena Pecenová and artist and curator Jiří Havlíček. More information on the jury is available here.