Mezipatra Gay & Lesbian Film Fest

Brno and Prague, 26/10 2010: Festival Mezipatra, whose previous ten editions were visited by over 75 000 viewers, is entering the 11th edition on the 4th November with the thematic focus High Art. The international queer film festival is accompanied by a multi-genre off-programme and the main programme includes cinema premiers of exceptional films.

 The upcoming edition of Mezipatra starts on 4th November in Brno and on the 11th November in Prague. The program presents an ironic polemic over the meanings of high and low art. The Opening film of the festival Howl by the Academy-winning filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman depicts the beat generation legend Allen Ginsberg. The Opening party will take place in Brno´s Scala cinema and Hard Rock Cafe Prague. The closing film is Les amours imaginaires by the director and actor Xavier Dolan about love in a complicated triangle. The opening and closing films will be theatrically released by the Czech distributors ACFK and Aerofilms. The topic of High Art includes biographies, both fiction and documentary, about the lives and art of remarkable artists as well as art of contemporary self-reflexive filmmakers that speak of filmmaking itself to discuss the director-viewer relationship. The festival director Aleš Rumpel explains: “High Art provokes questions concerning the way an art work can earn the right to be placed amongst “high“ (consequently appreciated, exhibited, promoted and funded) genres and opens the way for curatorial games and questioning the borders of definitions that categorize art. Therefore the programme also includes films that mix the seemingly inconsistent and overturn the values of “high“ and “low“, to discover and repeatedly invent new art.” The festival thus showcases the work of the British choreographer Matthew Bourne, who created novel adaptations of classic ballets such as The Car Man (“auto-erotic thriller” based on Bizet) or The Swan Lake and the Midnight Punk-pop mini-section of film tearing down all barriers between high and low art. The retrospective profile of the 11th edition is dedicated to Barbara Hammer, the American pioneer of lesbian videoart. Mezipatra is introducing her work to the Czech audience in the same year when her retrospectives were offered by the Tate Modern and MoMa. Each edition of Mezipatra presents a wide scope of accompanying programme. The Queer Cafe series of talks will cover topics such as queers in horror film or political aspects of gay porn and for the first time, Mezipatra will host an opera recital. Art exhibitions will take feature work by young (audio)visual artists from the Czech and Slovak Republics and Canada. The eleventh edition of Mezipatra takes place from 4- 9 November in Brno and 11-16 November in Prague. Selection of the festival programme tours Ostrava, Plzeň, Olomouc, České Budějovice, and Pardubice.  www.mezipatra.cz