- Mezipatra Queer Film Festival will welcome remarkable guests from around the world.
- Among those coming are the Canadian director and photographer Bruce LaBruce, the producer of Transparent series Rhys Ernst, and Nneka Onuorah, a documentarist from New York.
- The main prize will be awarded by an international jury, the best short film will be decided by a student jury.
Ten guests will arrive to Mezipatra from Berlin, Austria, the USA and Israel, and festival's visitors will have a chance to meet them at discussions, Q&As, special screenings, and also at a photo exhibition or a unique performance.
“Variety is essential for Mezipatra – it includes both the films as such and the selection of guests from abroad which our viewers can meet at discussions and accompanying events,” says the director of the festival, Pavel Bicek. “I am truly happy this year that such diverse and fascinating personalities as the acclaimed director and photographer Bruce LaBruce, the producer and filmmaker Rhys Ernst, who will introduce the Transparent series for the very first time in the Czech Republic, and the debuting documentarist Nneka Onuorah.”
Bruce LaBruce
In late 1980s and early 1990s, the Canadian legend made his name with short and later also feature films which combined traditional narrative methods and film language with elements of explicit porn and trash. His subversive films, for example No Skin Off My Ass (1993), Hustler White (1996) and The Raspberry Reich (2004), explore fetishism, BDSM, violence, and other formerly taboo topics. He chose a more traditional film form for the acclaimed Gerontophilia (2013).
He is also a distinguished photographer, he has been cooperating with Vice and BlackBooks magazines for a long time, and he published a queer-punk zin, J.D.s., between 1985 and 1991. In 1997, he published memoir The Reluctant Photographer. He is currently based in Berlin and is working on several new films.
At this year's Mezipatra, Bruce LaBruce will be a member of the main jury, which chooses the best feature film in the main competition. He will also personally introduce a special screening of Hustler White, and he will perform as a DJ at the main festival party, Off limits, which takes place in NEONE and The Chemistry Gallery on Saturday, 5th November.
CHEAP Kollektiv
The members of the Berlin creative collective, which has been active for fifteen years, are closely connected to Bruce LaBruce's work. Actress Susanne Sachße, drag performer Vaginal Davis, film scientist Mark Siegel, and translator Daniel Hendrickson have prepared a unique multimedia performance named Piano Bar for Mezipatra, and it will take place directly at the Lucerna café balustrade.
Michal Vinik
The Israeli director was already praised for her two short films, Bait (2009) and Srak (2011), which featured at festivals in Locarno and Sundance. Her last year's feature debut, Barash, premiered at San Sebastian IFF and won the award for the best film at Outview Queer Festival in Greece. Michal Vinik is currently working on her second feature film and teaches at the Department of Film and Television of Tel Aviv University.
It is the summer romance Barash which the director will introduce at this year's Mezipatra. At the Q&A following the film screening, the viewers can meet both her and Daphna Keenan – a singer, musician and music producer who wrote the film's soundtrack.
Rhys Ernst
The American filmmaker has been focusing on trans* representation in film and television production for a long time. He is one of the producers of the Transparent series, which won eight Emmy awards this year, and he also devised its opening credits. He is the creator of the web series This Is Me (2015) and We've Been Around (2016). He has won Horizon Award which Point Foundation awards to artists who contribute to a better representation of the LGBTQ community in the media. Rhys Ernst lives in Los Angeles and he is currently working on his first feature film.
In Prague, he will personally introduce selected episodes of the third season of Transparent: it will be historically the very first opportunity for viewers to see anything of the Amazon production legally. As a part of an interactive discussion, he will show his We've Been Around series, which focuses on distinguished figures of the trans* movement history. On Monday, 7th November, he will open the Relationship photographic exhibition which he created together with his former partner, Zackary Drucker, between 2008 and 2014.
As a twenty-year-old student of psychology at LaGuardia Community College, she became a music selector for American Black Entertainment Television. She has toured as a motivational speaker and she is currently working as a producer for Black Girls Rock Awards. Her documentary, The Same Difference, is critically acclaimed.
Nneka Onuorah will introduce her documentary debut, which reflects discrimination within the African-American lesbian community in New York, at this year's Mezipatra.
Händl Klaus
The Austrian native is famous mainly as an actor in his home country. He has played many theatre, television and film roles: you could have also seen him in smaller parts in Michael Haneke's films. He writes fiction, radio and theatre plays, and opera librettos. His film feature debut, March (März, 2008) won Silver Leopard at Locarno IFF.
His feature debut and his latest film, Tomcat (Kater), are connected by the topics of mourning and dealing with loss. He will personally present the study of estrangement and a dissolving relationship of two middle-aged men at this year's Mezipatra.
Short films directors
Four directors will come this year to introduce their short films. Shaked Goren, an Israeli director and scriptwriter, focuses on the current situation in Middle East in If I Met a Magician (Im Efgosh Kosem), but in the queer context; French Arthur Cahn follows two men who meet thanks to a dating app in his Herculaneum (Herculanum).
A Spanish-Chinese duo, Roberto F. Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi, will present Floating Melon (Fu Guo) whose main protagonist, longing for one last night together, roofies his partner who wants to leave him. Everything seems alright, but the boyfriend eventually stops showing signs of life...
The prize for the Best Feature Film will traditionally be awarded by an international jury. Apart from the director Bruce LaBruce, it will include Šárka Gmiterková, a doctoral student at the Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture at the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University in Brno and a film publicist, and the artistic director of Karlovy Vary IFF, Karel Och.
The prize for the best short live-action film will be decided by a student jury. This year, it consists of the artist, curator and publicist Markéta Garai (Academy of Fine Arts), Matouš Hartman (Faculty of Arts, Charles University) who is a member of the Prague Pride PR and marketing team, and the director, writer, translator, photographer and visual artist Piaoyu Xie (Academy of Performing Arts).
Ticket sale at theatre box offices and online, more information on the festival's website.
Prague 3rd – 10th November
Brno 11th – 18th November
regions: Olomouc 22nd – 26th November, Hradec Králové 8th – 9th December
Visuals 2016 – photo Michaela Karásek Čejková, graphic design Marius Corradini / Side 2
Complete program and information: www.mezipatra.cz
Film trailers and other videos here
PRESS materials and photos for download:
https://mezimedia.capsa.cz
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