Winter Film Festival 4 elements will take a place in Banská Štiavnica at the end of winter (February 23 – 25, 2018). The festival will traditionally enrich the long weekend with live-action films, documentaries, animations, master classes, concerts and visual art. The topic of this edition The Beginning will bring the Slovak shorts into the programme, as most filmmakers start their careers with making the short films.
4 elements will introduce short films of three Slovak pioneers of The New Wave who will celebrate their 80th anniversary this year (Elo Havetta died in 1975). The audience will have a opportunity to see Silence (d. Juraj Jakubisko), 6 Questions for Jan Werich (d. Dušan Hanák) and St. Jane by Elo Havetta on the big screen.
The festival will also introduce a selection of archive shorts – New Slovakia, New Man, New Life, selected by film theorist Eva Filová. The Valley of Happiness (d. Vladimír Bahna) presents a reportage about building a railroad between Hronská Dúbrava and Banská Štiavnica, Victory in the Wasteland (d. Ján Beer) informs the audience about the pioneers of growing rice in Slovakia and Stars in Shafts (d. Dušan Kodaj) takes a closer look at the miners working in Banská Štiavnica. Beside the three reportages, the selection will consist of two short documentaries – The New Village (d. Pavel Miškuv) explains how to build new villages and cities, while Tencer Slabey Maťaš (d. Milan Černák) confronts the working heroes of the first five-year plan with their present social status and opinions.
The second edition of the competition section Different visions will present 8 films. The winner will be selected by the Jury composed of Zuzana Bodnárová, Ivana Laučíková and Jiří Neděla.
Last but not least, the festival will pre-release Slovak-German co-production film Freedom (d. Jan Speckenbach), which was world premiered at 70th Locarno IFF and will be released to distribution in March 2018. Film tells the story of Nora (40) craving for freedom and a new beginning.
Web: http://www.festival4elements.sk/en/2017-summer/introduction_summer_2017_eng
