MEDIAWAVE’2008
International Film and Music Festival
„FÉNYÍRÓK FESZTIVÁLJA – ANOTHER CONNECTION”
Győr, 26 April - 3 May 2008
SHADES OF 1968 - SPECIAL FOCUS
The 40th anniversary is a good opportunity to think over and speak about the artistic and social effects of this era, which on the one hand can be regarded as a mile stone of our New Age, but which, on the other hand, has been unfortunately neglected so far. At the end of the 1960's the strengthened civil and student movements made a huge attempt to push the states parading their power to the background, and even if their movements were repressed, they worth to be mentioned. In the USA: peace demonstrations against Vietnam War, the civil rigths movement, and the intoduction of the hippie subculture. In the West of Europe: French students' revolt, in East/Central-Europe: the Prague Spring, where the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies (among them with us, Hungarians, too) invaded the country to halt the reforms. Meanwhile in Hungary with the so-called "new economic mechanism" some kind of economic reforms began, and - paralelly with it - the "dance song contest" became more and more popular.
MEDIAWAVE Festival chose some characteristic events of this era as inspiration for its programmes:
- Széchenyi University organizes a conference with the help of well-known lecturers: "1968 - The Turning Point?" In addition: poster exhibition.
- Jirí Menzel was awarded by Oscar that year for "Closely Watched Trains" - our special guest is the Czech director.
- Ten Years After, the legendary rock band will help the several other bands to evoke the spirit of Woodstock on 27 April on the flood - basin of Mosoni-Danube holding concerts all the day for free.
FILM PROGRAMME
To the international film competition we recieved 1084 nominations from 66 countries from all over the world.
From them, the professional pre-selection comittee has choosen the best ones and built up the programme.
- The International Competition Programme (61 films)
4 features, 12 short fictions, 16 animations, 8 experimentals, 11 short docs and 9 documentaries.
- The International Panorama Programme (34 films)
1 feature, 9 short fictions, 10 animations, 7 music films, 2 artistic films, 3 short documentaries and 2 docs with the "shades of 1968".
Members of the preview jury were:
László CSÁKI – film director, experimental and animation filmmaker, teacher (Moholy-Nagy Art University)
György DURST – film producer, President of MEDIAWAVE International Visual Art Foundation
Sándor SILLÓ – television film director, dramaturg
Balázs VARGA – film critic, university teacher (ELTE)
Virág ZOMBORÁCZ – student of Film- and Theatre University, Scriptwriting Faculty
Members of the international jury are going to be:
Ella DAVLETSINA (RUS) - documentary filmmaker, director of "MEETINGS IN SIBERIA" International Documentary Film Festival
Mike HOOLBOOM (CAN) - fringe filmmaker,
KŐRÖSI Zoltán (HUN) - writer
Samira SINAI (IRN) - director, costume designer
TÖRÖK Ferenc (HUN) - director
SPECIAL FILMPROGRAMMES
IN MEMORY OF:
- GAÁL István
- ÓBERMAYER József
EUROPEAN FILM PANORAMA:
- The Counterfeiter (dir.: Stefan RUZOWITZKY) - OSCAR for the best forign film, 2007
- On the Other Side (dir.: Fatih Akin) - CANNES - the best screenplay, 2007
- Closely Watched Trains (dir.: Jirí Menzel) - OSCAR for the best foreign film, 1968
CINEMA ON THE SQUARE
-Kalandorok (dir.: PACZOLAY Béla)
-Bakkerman (dir.: SZŐKE András)
-Rövid, de kemény... életem (dir.: NYÍRI KOVÁCS István)
FILM WITH LIVE MUSIC
Kristin Asbrjonsen: MEDIAWAVE'2008 Festival signal (composer, singer) & Factotum (dir.: Bent Hamer)
Shades of Jazz on Noir directed by Ana Isabel Ordonez (FRA): a montage edited out of archive film noirs with the companionship of live music of 10 world-famous Hungarian, American, German, Polish musicians. European premiere.
SELECTIONS OF THE YOUTH FILM FESTIVALS
- Amirani Student Film Festival (Georgia)
- Early Melons Student Film Festival (Slovak Republic)
- Uherské Hradiste Summer Film School (Czech Republic)
- CINEFEST (Hungary)
- Gyerekszem Filmfesztivál (Hungary)
- Filmtett-Duna Műhely Film Camp (Romania)
PASSPORT CONTROL International Film, Photo, Critic Workshop 5
- with the participants from Siberia, Iran, Turkey, Georgia, Slovak Republic, Norway, the Netherlands, Italy, Romania, Hungary.
MUSIC PROGRAMME
The musical section also will be up to par. The organisers expect many world famous musician to the stage: TEN YEARS AFTER jazz - blues - rock heroes from England, DAVID MURRAY with Black Saint Quartet representing the american black jazz, CAMPBELL BROTHERS African-American gospel band with electric steel guitar and vocal, brand new american jazz artists RUDRESH MAHANTHAPPA & VIJAY IYER duo. We can also mention the beautiful Norwegian singer KRISTEN ASBJORNSEN with her special spiritual programme and the French LE TIGRES DE PLATANES band with Eténèsh WASSIÉ vocalist or DJABE band with the saxophonist star JOHN NUGENT and MALIK MANSUROV behind the percussion instruments…All these bands and singers show the special programme which can only come true at MEDIAWAVE Festival.
OTHER CULTURAL EVENTS
EXHIBITION
- photo exhibition: Gaál István, Óbermayer József, Szabó Ivett
- "Get-outs": fine art exhibition
-PASSPORT CONTROL photo exhibition
DANCE - THEATRE - MUPPET SHOW
Samira Sinai (IRN), Iron Rooster Muppet Theatre (Hun),
CONFERENCES
- FILM
"Future of Cinema"
"Deviant documentaries"
- MUSIC
Meeting of the Central-European Music Festivals and Clubs
- SHADES OF 1968
"1968 - The Turning Point?" -a conference organized by Széchenyi University
Closely Watched Trains
WORKSHOP
PASSPORT CONTROL International Film, Photo and Critic Workshop 5
PASSPORT CONTROL International Film, Photo and Critic Workshop proved to be the most important innovation of MEDIAWAVE Festival'2006 with 60 participants from 10 countries (from Hong-Kong to Italy). Since then two workshops were realized abroad: the 3th edition of it was organized in Siberia, Russia, while the 4th one was held in Kars, East-Turkey.
Participants of the 5th edition's film workshop will be taught by Marcell Ivány (Hungarian filmdirector) and Steve Sanguedolce (Canadian filmdirector), while the photographers' teacher will be Péter Szabó and last but not at least the critics' conductor will be György Báron.
During Mediawave Film Festival the Project Director of CortoModa Simone Zoppi will present a project and announce a competition for young professionals. Each participant of Passport Control will have an opportunity to take part in competition.
Within the main program of Passport Control workshop CortoModa teachers: Simone Zoppi, Alessandro Salomone (Video-Designer) and Talos Buccellati (Fashion and Advertising Photographer) will give series of lessons and master-classes for filmmakers and photographers.
Besides master-classes CortoModa program also includes shootings and team-work with young clothes designers.
Filmmakers and Photographers will present their photo-reportage and short docu-films on the final CortoModa Fashion Show, which will take place on the one of the main MediaWave stages.
International Jury Committee will select the best works. These works will be included in main competition program for the next edition of Cortomoda’08, which will be held in Italy on the White Night Festival.
ABOUT THE FESTIVAL
The festival is considered as a Central and Eastern European transit-festival, since by the festival centre (Győr, Hungary) there are going to happen simultaneously cultural and artistic events in 20 different venues of 4 different countries in the region (beside Hungary in Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic).
The MEDIAWAVE International Film and Music Festival on the one hand is an international competition of films, on the other hand it’s a mixture of jazz, ethno, alternative and electronic musical concerts and workshops. In addition exhibitions, theatrical and dance performances are held accompanied by gastronomical and natural programmes.
MEDIAWAVE, which involves many cultural and leisure programmes, is an excellent festival, which helps us prepare for summer. It is held in the period of time when we say goodbye to bad weather and we greet sunshine. The nature turns into green, flowers appear and birds start to sing (it also means that girls and women wear less clothes). After all we can say that MEDIAWAVE is the best way of celebrating summer in advance.
The programme augurs well. The centre will be Győr just as usual.