This summer, the Czech Republic’s 30th annual Summer Film School will feature a characteristically broad repertoire of screenings, workshops and live performances. Special guests for this anniversary edition include legendary writers/directors/ex-Pythons Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, and celebrated British playwright Tom Stoppard.

The festival takes place in Uherské Hradiště from 23rd July to 1st August. This year’s two main themes are "Childhood" and "Fairytales". Gilliam, who was recently in Prague filming a new version of the Brothers’ Grimm fairytales, will join Jones, Stoppard and others in exploring the theme of films for older audiences which use fairytale motifs and characters. As an entertaining bonus, all this year’s guests will give readings from their favourite children’s stories.
Since its inception, the Summer Film School has become synonymous with pushing forward boundaries: many films banned under communism were first re-introduced to the public at Summer Film School screenings in the 80s. Something else that sets the event apart is its young audience: it has become the summer event for young Czech film-makers, with up to 80% of its audience being composed of high school and college students seeking to develop their interest in film-making. Click here for the Summer Film School Newsletter.

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Apart from the two Pythons and Tom Stoppard, British Council with Crossroads for ideas campaign is bringing to Uherské Hradiště six amazing compilations of short films (in co-operation with Halloween film company and Domino recording company).

1. CHINESE VISIONS

MÍR CINEMA, UHERSKÉ HRADIŠTĚ, 24 July 2004, 20.30
The Orient holds an enduring fascination for the West.In this selection of films the lives and experiences of  Chinese men and women in both Britain Wildlife ,Dim Sum ,Hong Kong –Liverpool –Penzance and Lemon Crush and China  Lipstick , Far And Near are examined with insight, sensitivity and humour.

Films on the night:

			WILDLIFE , Kate De Pury, 10 min		The film tells the surreal and poetic story of love at first sight between The Chinese Girl and The Young Man,  who meet at a Chinese takeaway in Hackney.
			LIPSTICK , Li Li Na, 14 min		Set in the Cultural Revolution era of 1960’s China. As residents of a working village, couples are forced indulge  their passions in a disused cabin – all patiently waiting their turn.
			DIM SUM – Jane Wong, 37 min		Three Chinese women – Wah So,Marietta,and Linda – sit making dumplings in a Chinese grocery in Liverpool.The film  travels with these women:their struggles with language,their sacrifices and their values. What can the filmmaker  and viewer take from these women?
			HONG KONG –LIVERPOOL –PENZANCE – Raymond Wong, 5 min		The film-maker tells how his parents came to be together.
			LEMON CRUSH (Citrónová šťáva)– Shane O ’Sullivan, 14 min		A young Chinese waiter re-kindles his relationship with his high school sweetheart who is on her way to a date  with her French teacher.
			FAR AND NEAR , Xiaolu Guo, 22 min		A Chinese writer in Wales reminisces about her childhood in China.

2. CHILD'S PLAY

MÍR CINEMA, UHERSKÉ HRADIŠTĚ, 25 July 2004, 20.30
There is an old proverb in English which says that children should be seen and not heard. Here is a selection of  films which attempt to see the world through children’s eyes and allow their voices to be heard. Relationships  with troubled parents are depicted with great insight and unflinching candour in films such as Crow Stone and  Talking With Angels. A child ’s first experience with death is depicted with humour and charm in Goodbye Cruel  World. Disturbing aspects of fairytale are depicted in Duck Children and The Happiness Thief. Other films deal  with issues as diverse as deprivation in Wasp ,inter-generational relations in The Shoe Tree and first love in  Fernando.

			DUCK CHILDREN , Sam Walker, 8 min		Children perform a strange mechanical dance, which begins as an innocent pantomime but soon turns into something  more sinister.
			CROW STONE , Alicia Duffy, 12 min		A story of two young brothers living on a very isolated farm in the Fens, and their mother who is very seriously  depressed.
			THE SHOE TREE , Ian Cottage, 15 min		Locked in conflict, a young boy and his grumpy grandfather grow in friendship as they battle to release the boy’s shoes from a tree.
			GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD , Vito Rocco, 12 min		Comedy about a boy forced to deal with the death of his best friend.
			TALKING WITH ANGELS , Yousaf Ali Khan, 18 min		1970 ’s Salford. To others, Alan’s world is dysfunctional full of ‘spazos ’,madness,neglect and eccentricity – to Alan,it’s his  family.
			THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MAN IN THE WORLD , Alicia Duffy, 6 min		A girl. A dog. A mother. A topless man. This bewitching snapshot examines an encounter between a young girl and a  topless man.
			THE HAPPINESS THIEF , Derek Boyes, 14 min		A miserable girl curses her younger brother for being so happy. Summoned by her curse a grotesque figure steals the boy’s happiness.
			FERNANDO – Tancredi Medda, 2 min		Fernando is hiding under his grandmother’s sofa. Why?
			WASP , Andrea Arnold, 24 min		A single mother is broke and her kids are hungry. She bumps into a man she used to fancy, who doesn’t know she now has children.

3. DOMINO: worlds of possibility
In 2003, Domino celebrated 10 years of independent music with Worlds of Possibility, a series of gigs and events across London. With a varied roster of artists that includes Stephen Malkmus, Four Tet, and newcomers Franz Ferdinand, the label has charted a consistently strong path through the music industry. This independent spirit is echoed in their music promo output, choosing to showcase original voices and new talent in UK film-making and animation.  

Halloween will showcase both Domino and other work by film-makers and collectives such as Ed Holdsworth (for Four Tet), Grant Gee (for Stephen Malkmus), Scott Lyons (for Franz Ferdinand), Brothers Chapman (for New Folk Implosion), Woof Wan Bau (also for Four Tet), Delicious 9 (for Max Tundra) and Dougal Wilson (for Four Tet again), David Shrigley (for Bonnie Prince Billy), and Jonas Odell (also for Franz Ferdinand). Also, there's Delicious 9's work for Luke Vibert and Manitoba. Plus a rare screening of installation work 'Land Bubble Shinjuku' by Ed Holdsworth, as well as screenings of work by Domino bands Hood and Movietone who create their visual identity with their own film-making endeavours.

Film list in order of screening (song title, artiste, filmmaker):

			BRAND OF SKIN - New Folk Implosion (Brothers Chapman)
			MY ANGEL ROCKS BACK AND FORTH - Four Tet (Woof Wan-Bau)
			SHE MOVES HE - Four Tet (Ed Holdsworth)
			LAND BUBBLE SHINJUKU (Ed Holdsworth)
			YOU SHOW NO EMOTION AT ALL - Hood (Stephen Royale)
			LYSINE - Max Tundra (Delicious 9)
			DUCK GAIT PARADE - Damien Frost (Delicious 9)
			JACKNUGGETTED - Manitoba (Delicious 9)
			I LOVE ACID - Luke Vibert (Delicious 9)
			HYDRA - Movietone (Simon Daly)
			AS SERIOUS AS YOUR LIFE - Four Tet (Dougal Wilson)
			AGNES QUEEN OF SORROW - Bonnie Prince Billy (David Shrigley)
			TAKE ME OUT - Franz Ferdinand (Jonas Odell)
			DARTS OF PLEASURE - Franz Ferdinand (Scott Lyon)
			COBRA BAG (Grant Gee)
			DISCRETION GROVE - Stephen Malkmus (Grant Gee)

4. SKATEBOARD SHORTS

MÍR CINEMA, UHERSKÉ HRADIŠTĚ, 27 July 2004, 20.30
Halloween & skateboard filmmaker Lucia Helenka trawls the skate scene to present a programme of cutting edge skate shorts revealing a youth culture which has taken to video like no other. Skateboarding and filmmaking go hand in hand, and the beauty of the sport makes it endlessly watchable. Both skateboarding and filmmaking also lend themselves perfectly to music. The tracks that drive the footage along, that mirror the pace, energy and soul of a scene are often as important as the visual material. The programme features guerrilla ramp building antics, pool skating, skateboard animation, a documentary about skateboard accidents, and some lyrical night skate footage.

Lucia Helenka: "The film programme screening I’ve curated…collects the best of the best and unseen/unearthed footage; a rewarding session of an exciting aspect of filmmaking. The work mixes street life, abstract video and urban inspiration. Some of this work has been screened by filmmaker Helen Stickler, whose own underground skate video shows in New York became the stuff of cult legend; she’s since gone on to make her own Stoked documentary. With the commercial success of Dogtown and the Z Boys (tipped for a Hollywood remake), Spike Jonze, and the MTV Jackass crew and Dirty Sanchez (all of which grew out of the skate video scene), there’s a strong on-going interest in new and exciting work."

			Artist &skater YUKI SHIMA presents a selection of skateboard video.		Artist &skater YUKI SHIMA presents a selection of skateboard video.
			BURNSIDE , Anonymous		A documentary about the building of a ‘guerrilla ’ skateboard park under a motorway flyover by local skaters,using cement and wood.
			HEROINE SKATE TEAM – Alan Glass		A short video about the Heroine skateboard label.
			SKATEBOARDS &HEARTACHE , Anonymous		A very short but sweet animation about skateboarders in love.
			THE FAT , Lucia Helenka		A 15 minute documentary about skateboard accidents. Filmed in London, from local skaters on the South Bank,  youngsters just taking up the sport, and interviews with World famous skateboarder Tony Hawk.
			SERRATED , Angus Leadley-Brown		Photographer Leadley-Brown brings his experimental photos of skateboarders in mid-air to life.
			A DAY IN THE CITY , Mike Pearson//Danny Wainwright		The first of two Day In The City films; a UK wide competition by filmmaker Phil Young to find the best skate video makers.
			NIGHT SKATE IN CORNWALL , Yuki Shima		A beautiful lyrical film set in the orange glow of the streetlights, as two skateboarders attempt some tricks.
			More videowork from skater &artist YUKI SHIMA
			SKATE OR DIE , Mike Finch		A low budget comedy drama about two skateboarders trying to find a place to skate, but problems and people make  it hard.
			INSPIRED INSOMNIA , Dan Magee
			FIREWORKS , Anonymous		The ultimate ‘don ’t try this at home’ stunt!! Made by skateboarders in the best ‘Jackass’ tradition, and involving a large amount of fireworks!

5. HORROR SHORTS

MÍR CINEMA, UHERSKÉ HRADIŠTĚ, 28 July 2004, 20.30
Halloween presents the best of recent forays into horror, from atmospheric gothic stories to darker more extreme forays into the unknown. Included in the programme are three model animations by Robert Morgan, who creates the darkest scenarios from the depths of his imagination, involving Siamese twins, psychopathic cats, and necrophilia! Equally dark is Devlin Crow's animation, 'Expelling The Demon' premiered at Nick Cave's Meltdown Festival, and Steven Eastwood's twisted take on Comte De Lautrement's cult 18th century experimental novel 'Maldoror'. UK cult comedy team the League of Gentlemen turn to strange tales of the unexpected in 'The Cicerones', and we can see the last reel of a lost horror film in 'Cry'. There's also a black humour on show, in 'What About The Bodies?' and recent Halloween Short Film Festival horror film winner 'Pool Shark' - is it safe to go back into the water at the local swimming baths??
There's also low budget shenanigans from London's Blunt Productions who's own zombie sitcoms and 3-D masterpieces (3-D glasses will be supplied!) are bound to raise the spirits.

Films on the night (in alphabetical order):

			BLOOD (Philip Ilson)		A young girl can only survive with a craving for fresh blood. An extreme short film influenced by a mix of 90's fashion photography and 70's exploitation cinema.
			THE CAT WITH HANDS (Robert Morgan)		A terrifying mix of live action and animation, as an old legend of a cat with human hands is recounted to a fascinated young boy.
			THE CICERONES (Jeremy Dyson)		Directed by Jeremy Dyson and starring Mark Gattiss, both from the successful BBC black comedy series 'The League of Gentleman'. This short drama has a similar mix of uneasiness and humour, as a Victorian tourist visits a European cathedral in search of a lost work of art. He finds more than the painting he is looking for.
			CRY (Steven Sheil)		Described as the last 10 minutes of a lost horror film. A high energy mix of blood and jumpy moments that dispenses with the long setting the scene of most horror films, and goes straight for the kill.
			DEAD WOOD (Groovy Badger Films)		A short urban myth. Don't go outside the van if you hear scratchy noises.
			EXPELLING THE DEMON (Devlin Crow)		This animation was premiered at Nick Cave's Meltdown Festival. The story of a man with an inner demon living inside his tongue, with a gruesome ending that's bound to make you cringe.
			HOW IT WAS WE GOT TO BE ANGELS (Gareth Howell)		A powerful and moving animation concerning a group of young people on a car journey, and event that changes their lives forever.
			THE MAN IN THE LOWER LEFT HAND CORNER OF THE PHOTOGRAPH (Robert Morgan)		An incredibly dark model animation by the king of the macabre. A lonely man living in a bedsit spies on the suicide of his next door neighbour. Finally he discovers the companion he's been looking for.
			OCTOBER GAMES (Valentina Lari)		On Halloween evening in a Spanish town a disturbed man recounts a violent incident from a few years earlier which had started out as an innocent childhood game.
			POOL SHARK (Sam Walker)		Winner of Salvation Films Best Horror Film at the recent ICA Halloween Shorts Fest. A hilariously dark take on the 'Jaws' myth relocated to a local family swimming pool.
			THE SEPARATION (Robert Morgan)		A moving and disturbing model animation about the inseperable lives of siamese twins who finally decide to make the break.
			SLEEPWALKER (Simon GM Li)		An urban myth set in a hospital. A young nurse finds a lost patient in an empty room and attempts to help her back to her bed.
			SLEEPWALKING (Dominique Golden)		A clever short story about an alternative way to sleepwalk.
			THE SPECTATOR OF OUTRAGEOUS CONTORTION: MALDOROR EP. 7 (Steven Eastwood)		Made as part of an experimental feature film where 11 directors were asked to interprete a different chapter of the cult 18th century novel 'Maldoror 'by Comte de Lautrement. This chapter concerns a magician meeting God and the devil in a dark empty house.
			WHAT ABOUT THE BODIES? (Simon Ellis)		A black comedy about murder on the English moors.
			and last a surprise low budget horror from BLUNT PRODUCTIONS		Blunt host monthly screenings in East London where they screen a selection of their own hilarious low budget short films drawing on zombie and kung fu influences. We will screen a short selection of zombie related shenanigans, including one of their 3-d masterpieces in the 'Zombie Sitcom' series (glasses will be provided!).

6. TEENAGE KICKS

UHERSKÉ HRADIŠTĚ, 30 July 2004, 20.30
A powerful selection of dramas that pull no punches in their depiction of teenage life in the 21st century.  Adolescent sexuality rears its ugly head in The End And Back Again and Gone. There’s also the sweet love story  Veronique, and a more unsentimental depiction of young people’s love lives in Love Me Or Leave Me Alone and The  Bells. Other films like Innocent Pink, What About Me? and Rank tackle issues of abuse, deprivation and alienation  that many young kids face in their daily lives.

			GONE , Matthew Thompson, 10 min		A young man looks back on a party at which everything went shockingly wrong for a friend.
			THE END AND BACK AGAIN , Lee Jane, 10 min		A fourteen year-old girl struggles with her encroaching sexuality and the blurring of boundaries between  childhood games and adult fantasies.
			LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME ALONE , Duane Hopkins, 15 min		A young boy, a young girl. Against a backdrop of the countryside, they try to understand and express their  feelings for each other, in a study in the articulations and limitations of first love.
			DAD’S DEAD , Chris Shepherd, 7 min		A young man’s disturbing reminiscences of childhood.
			THE BELLS , David Hevey, 9 min		In a churchyard, a bag lady and a wino come together over talk of families and children long since gone.  Meanwhile, two teenagers are thrown apart because of a baby neither planned nor wanted.
			WHAT ABOUT ME? , Paul Whittington,17 min		A teenage boy watches as his family is torn apart by his sister’s drug addiction.
			INNOCENT PINK , Paul Whittington, 19 min		A young girl relies on teenage dreams and nail varnish to survive in a hostile world.
			RANK , David Yates, 15 min		A street gang cross Glasgow to witness the arrival of a group of Somali refugees; a portrait of racism, friendship and adolescents.
			FENDER BENDER , Dan Elliott, 10 min		A boy and a man both struggle with their thoughts and emotions after being affected by the same fatal accident, in an exploration of guilt and frustration.
			VERONIQUE , Patrick Bergh, 5 min		A boy gets on a bus and falls in love with a girl. Is this his first true love, or just the  overwrought workings of his romantic imagination?
			ABOUT A GIRL , Brian Percival, 9 min		A film about a girl experiencing the hopes and dreams of an average northern working-class teenager.