Most major film projects today are shrouded in secrecy during their preparation, and production companies carefully consider what type of information to release to the world. The threat of the uncontrolled spread of information via social media has also transformed viewing habits. Much of the film-going public is gripped by spoiler panic, fearing that they will stumble upon unwanted information about the story, characters, cast, or other key areas of an eagerly anticipated project online. For this reason, it may come as a surprise to discover that there was a time when information about films was disseminated much more freely, without fear that revealing a significant portion of the plot (even including a surprise twist) could significantly spoil the viewing experience. Those were the days when film critics gleefully revealed the identity of the killers in reviews and trailers assured audiences that the lovers would end up together despite numerous obstacles.

In the main program section of the 13th Noir Film Festival, we will look at five films from the 1940s to the 1960s that helped lay the foundations for the spoiler panic phenomenon, however much their contemporary promotion differed from today’s conventions, which include varying degrees of secrecy and non-disclosure clauses for crew members. All five films rely heavily on shocking narrative twists or revelations, the prior knowledge of which can greatly alter (some argue outright ruin) the viewing experience. You have been warned! You can look forward to, among others, The Woman in the Window (1944) by noir stalwart Fritz Lang, the legendary Les Diaboliques (1955) by French director Henri-Georges Clouzot, and the lesser-known British film Taste of Fear (1961), made after the enormous box-office success of Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960).

Starting February 1st, you can support the upcoming NFF edition by purchasing one of the remaining generous passes that haven’t yet been allocated as benefits for festival donations. Forty of these passes have already found their owners.

As of today, there are still 10 Noir passes available (10 out of 30 total). Both Partner and Sponsor passes are already SOLD OUT (0 out of 5 and 0 out of 15, respectively).

Basic passes for this year’s edition will be released on May 1, 2025, while individual screening ticket sales will start on June 26, 2025.

Thank you for supporting the festival! We look forward to seeing you in August at the courtyard of Křivoklát Castle.

Starting next year, the Noir Film Festival will alternate between two castles. The 13th edition (August 27–30, 2025) will return to the royal Křivoklát Castle after five years, while the 14th edition in August 2026 will take place at Český Šternberk Castle.

The festival will continue to rotate between these two castles – Křivoklát for odd years and Český Šternberk for even years. The festival is also changing its schedule, running from Wednesday to Saturday, which means there will be four main evening screenings. Both the opening and closing ceremonies will take place in the upper castle courtyard under the open sky.

Keep coming back with us, we look forward to seeing you!

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