We are very honored that the international edition of the prestigious The New York Times (12 September 2024) has published a mention of the Noir Film Festival, with a link to the festival’s English website.

The mention is part of a quote from an interview conducted by editor David Belcher with programmer Milan Hain.
The article was published in both the print and electronic versions of this important world media.

Thank you!

The voices of detectives, villains and femmes fatales in the castle premises and in the cinema located below the castle have fallen silent and the 12th Noir Film Festival has been over for more than two weeks…

So let me first of all thank everyone who made the past festival of film noir possible – from the programmers, production, festival centre, subtitle translators, PR, technicians, venue staff, the „Black Market“, HamTam catering, Kávy pitel café and others. Of course, we would also like to thank our partners, donors and the administration of Český Šternberk Castle, without whom we would not have been able to meet for the twelfth time and talk about interesting (not only film) experiences.

And last but not least, thank you, the visitors, for coming to the festival again in large numbers and enjoying all fifty festival screenings, you were great!
Finally, I apologize to those who did not enjoy the film screenings as much as they expected due to the higher temperature in two halls. I promise that we will try to provide a „cooler environment“ in them at next year’s event.

I am looking forward to seeing you at the 13th edition, enjoy the end of summer and come to the traditional autumn Echoes of the festival, which we are preparing for you, for example, in Prague’s Lucerna cinema and Brno’s Art cinema…

Sincerely,

Vítek Grigartzik
Executive Director of the festival

Our sincere thanks to the main partners of the 12th Noir Film Festival, which are the Central Bohemian Region and innogy, as well as the main media partner, which is Voyo.

The American hard-boiled school of crime fiction, associated with names like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain and Cornell Woolrich, is usually considered one of the major sources of inspiration for classic film noir. It would seem that this is a purely male affair, and that men are behind the vast majority of canonical dark tales. But this year’s section, aptly named after the iconic TV series Murder, She Wrote, aims to show that reality is not so black and white. Women acted as screenwriters in large numbers, and a significant percentage of films noir were directly adapted from novels by female authors. The Noir Film Festival already highlighted the important legacy of the American novelist Patricia Highsmith in the past and this year it will shine a light on other prominent figures: Vera Caspary (Laura, Bedelia), Dorothy B. Hughes (The Fallen Sparrow), Ethel Lina White (The Spiral Staircase) and Marie Belloc Lowndes (The Lodger).

Milan Hain

In recent years, Czechs have discovered Poland as a popular holiday destination and it was only a matter of time before we would visit the country of our northern neighbors in our festival program. The Polish film noir section includes four films from the 1950s and 1960s, when Polish cinema rose to great artistic success and received a positive response abroad (Knife in the Water). This collection is complemented by the extraordinary audience hit of the 1990s, Pigs, which was made in a turbulent time of political transformation. The section reflects the early work of esteemed auteurs (Roman Polanski, Wojciech Jerzy Has) as well as titles that have been rather neglected in the Czech Republic (The Criminal Who Stole a Crime). The films will be presented at the festival by Iwona Łyko-Plos, curator of the National Film Archive in Prague, who has long been interested in the history of Polish cinema.

Milan Hain

Less than a month to go until the start of the 12th edition and we’re already reporting the first five sold-out screenings! You can always find updated information about the capacity of the hall in the film tabs. We look forward to seeing you again and seeing you soon at Český Šternberk Castle. 🙂

This year we selected four diverse titles from the late 1950s and early 1960s for the program section presenting Czechoslovak films in which noir aspects can be found to varying degrees. The crime film with a well-matched pair of investigators searching for the murderer of a lottery ticket winner, 105% Alibi, played an important role in determining the direction of Czechoslovak socialist detective film genre. A dark tale of injustice and revenge, The Avenger, set in pre-World War I Prague, takes us on a construction site among bricklayers and into nightclubs. The contrast of the sumptuous villa and the muddy roads leading to the stables and cowsheds is shown in Fetters, where the protagonist finds himself at a crossroads of his life. We are drawn into the world of the youth by the most visually striking film in the section, On the Tightrope, in which a cheeky and agile young man of a poor background goes through both boisterous parties and the reality of adult life while working hard in the steel mills.

Veronika Zýková

The diverse ways in which aspects of film noir were and still are incorporated not only into the subgenres of drama, thriller or crime film are at the core of the festival’s program. The fluidity of noir has also been demonstrated in the past in noir westerns or historicizing films. The playful work of the Coen brothers has also shown the audience the attractive possibilities of fusing noir with other genres (including comedy). This year, the form of noir stories that merge with visions of a future dominated by modern technology is finally coming into its own. A future that, in the filmmakers‘ view, has not been too kind to predictions about the state of planet Earth and human existence. We can see the value in a fact that the futuristic visions of films produced in the 1980s and 1990s can now be approached with a critical distance and an awareness of the real technological advances that have occurred since then.

Jana Bébarová

The wait is over! We have announced the complete program of this year’s Noir Film Festival. You can see all the films and screening times here. Plan your days at the Noir Film Festival and book your tickets and passes early. We look forward to seeing you at Český Šternberk Castle!