To communicate with MEDIA Salles, please use
the following e-mail address only: infocinema@mediasalles.it
Milan, 1 June 2004
Thursday 3 June will see the first
day of a new "Focus on Europe - Kidflix Special", the event that
MEDIA Salles devotes each year to European exhibitors committed to programming
for children and schools. Following the festivals of Castellinaria (Switzerland)
and Giffoni (Italy), the initiative will be hosted this year by the 44th
International Children's Film Festival of Zlín, in the Czech Republic.
Zlín: from shoes to films
Zlín, also known as Gottwaldov, the name it was given during the Communist
regime, and which it retained from the '50s to the '90s, became an important
centre of industry at the beginning of the Nineteen Hundreds, thanks to
Tomas Bata, who founded the homonymous shoe-making industry there, also
building houses, hospitals, schools, a public transport system and a Studio
of Animation, directed by Hermina Trilova, where advertising was made.
Here Karel Zeman worked and, together with Trilova, made the Zlín studios
famous: in '45 Zeman made his first short film, A Christmas Dream,
which won an award at Cannes. Since then, a large number of short
and full-length films of great importance, also from an experimental point
of view, have been produced in these studios, which participants in the
MEDIA Salles Focus event will be visiting in the next few days. The International
Festival that will host them, held for the first time 44 years ago, also
boasts one of the longest-standing traditions in the field. Last year's
Festival, which presented 232 films from 34 different nations, drew over
40,000 spectators.
Focus on Europe - Kidflix Special
As well as attending several pre-screenings of European films - some alongside
the Festival's young audiences - and visiting the studios, the exhibitors
taking part in Focus will have the opportunity of sharing their most significant
experiences in the promotion of cinemas and the organisation of ancillary
events. In Prague they will visit three cinemas of particular importance
in terms of technological innovations or programming: Lucerna Kino,
Svetozor Kino and Slovanský Dum, a city multiplex belonging
to the Palace Cinemas chain, with the only digital screen in the Czech
Republic.
The two customary sections of the "Euro
Kids" award, the first for theatres that have carried out the best
programming, ancillary events and promotion of European films on behalf
of young people, and the second for a European children's film with high
potential for international circulation, will be presented this year at
the closing ceremony of the Zlín Festival, which will be broadcast live
on national television.
For further information:
MEDIA Salles
Via Soperga, 2
20127 Milano
Tel.: +39.02.66984405 - Fax: +39.02.6691574
E-mail: infocinema@mediasalles.it
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