Samantha Fuller didn’t make it to the Noir Film Festival this year due to illness, but she did make a beautiful video greeting for the final screening of Pierrot le fou with an unforgettable cameo by her father, Samuel Fuller. ❤️

Yesterday we closed the 10th edition of the festival with a screening of Gilda with the phenomenal Rita Hayworth. However, today you can still see several films at Český Šternberk Castle: the cult Se7en by David Fincher, Abraham Polonsky’s Force of Evil starring John Garfield, the Spanish heist film The Andalusian Express or Godard’s Pierot le fou, which this year will commemorate the legacy of French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo in the farewell screening. Thank you to everyone who came to see us and who supported us. As always, it was wonderful. We look forward to seeing you next year!

Noir Film Festival is in full swing Death of a Cyclist, Dead Among the Living, The Big Sleep, Kiss Me Deadly… this is just a fragment of the films we enjoyed with our audience at Český Šternberk Castle in a warm noir atmosphere. We were visited by our long-time patron and guest Tomáš Hanák, who received the Noir Eye Award from festival director Vítek Grigartzik, which the festival regularly awards to those who popularise film noir. Before the screening of The Big Sleep, where Tomáš Hanák aka Phil Marlowe read from Chandler’s novel of the same name, we christened another Blu-ray: Aldrich’s apocalyptic noir Kiss Me Deadly, released by Alan Záruba’s company Art4Film, this time with an accompanying original essay by Noir Film Festival programmer Milan Hain. The godmothers of the launch were actresses Judit Bárdos and Ivana Chýlková. Today, the festival moved into its second half. But we’re not done yet! Enjoy!

After a symbolic detour to Kokořín Castle, where the Noir Film Festival was born in 2013 and where we screened Ulmer’s Detour in the open air on Tuesday 16 August, we opened the 10th edition of the festival on Wednesday 17 August with a screening of the Spanish noir Death of a Cyclist in the castle courtyard. Among the guests present was director Jan Hřebejk, a regular visitor of the Noir Film Festival. The 10th edition was officially opened with the screening of the Czechoslovak film gem Awakening directed by Jiří Krejčík with Jana Brejchová in one of the central roles. Violoncellist Terezie Kovalová accompanied the screening of the Czechoslovak silent film Poisoned Light directed by Karel Lamač and the audience enthusiastically enjoyed the screening of Mysterious Women starring Hedda Lamarr.

other guests: Václav Marhoul, Jiří Dvořák, Leoš Noha, Marek Adamczyk, Jaroslav Satoranský, Alan Záruba, Terezie Kovalová, Jakub Šafr, Žofie Kabelková, Jan Teplý, Pavel Rímský

SOLD-OUT SCREENINGS: 

Aug 17
12:30 pm – Awakening
3:45 pm – The Strange Woman
6:15 pm – The Poisoned Light
9:00 pm – Death of a Cyclist

Aug 18
1:00 pm – The Prowler
1:30 pm – Guilty by Suspicion
3:00 pm – Express Train from Andalucía
4:00 pm – Murder is My Beat
6:00 pm – Mildred Pierce
6:15 pm – Big Case

Aug 19
9:45 am – Ditirambo
10:00 am – He Run All the Way
12:15 pm – The Ballad of the Seven Hanged
1:00 pm – The Sound of Fury
3:15 pm – The Sound of Fury
9:00 pm – The Big Sleep

Aug 20
10:15 am – Rogue Cop
10:30 am – Death of a Cyclist
12:15 pm – The Glass Eye
3:15 pm – The Prowler
3:30 pm – Underworld U.S.A.
5:30 pm – Fight Club
5:45 pm – Leave Her to Heaven
6:15 pm – Kiss Me Deadly
9:00 pm – Gilda

Aug 21
9:15 am – Detour
6:30 pm – Force of Evil

ADDED SCREENINGS:

Aug 18
1:15 pm – Mildred Pierce

Aug 19
9:15 – The Big Sleep

Aug 20
9:45 am – Rogue Cop
10:00 am – Kiss Me Deadly
9:15 pm – Gilda

In 2013, Samantha Fuller (*1975) made a documentary about her father Samuel Fuller (1912–1997), the enfant terrible of American cinema. A Fuller Life, an adaptation of the filmmaker’s autobiography, was screened at the 2018 Noir Film Festival with the director’s personal participation as part of a select retrospective of Fuller’s work. Samantha Fuller returns to the festival after four years to personally introduce her father’s film Underworld U.S.A. (1961), which will be screened as part of the Special Screenings. Similarly, Jean-Luc Godard’s Crazy Pete (Pierrot le fou, 1965), where Samuel Fuller appeared in a famous cameo, is here to utter the iconic line, „Film is like a battleground,“ in response to Jean Paul Belmondo’s character asking “what is film?”. “It’s love. Hate. Action. Violence. Death. In one word: emotions.“

Like every year, the festival’s programmers Jana Bébarová and Milan Hain have included a section dedicated to the non-American film noir genre. After last year’s excursion to Bollywood, this year they are returning to Europe again and will present the forms of noir in Spanish filmography in five selected films. Alongside the famous Death of a Cyclist (Muerte de un ciclista, 1955), directed by Juan Antonio Bardem, about a loving couple brought to ruin by a tragic accident, lesser-known films such as Ditirambo (1969) will be screened in the Czech Republic, in which the film’s director Gonzalo Suárez plays the title protagonist, a journalist who is hired by a wealthy widow to exact revenge on her late husband’s former lover.

The character of a disgraced, unsuccessful writer who gets caught in the net of his own invention appears in José Antonio Nieves Conde’s Red Fish (Los peces rojos, 1955), while Express Train from Andalucía (El expreso de Andalucía, 1956), directed by Francisco Rovira Beleta, is a prime example of a thrilling heist film. The selection will be rounded off by The Glass Eye (El ojo de cristal, 1956), which Antonio Santillán directed as an adaptation of a novel by the American hard-boiled literature writer Cornel Woolrich, whose work the Noir Film Festival presented in the selection section back in 2019.

In one month, the walls of Český Šternberk will open for fans of noir films. On Tuesday, 16 August, we start with a symbolic screening at Kokořín Castle, the place where the Noir Film Festival was first held in 2013 – fittingly, Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour will be screened. All information about the screening can be found here.

We are currently reporting three sold-out screenings. Keep an eye on our website and feel free to order tickets at vstupenky@noirfilmfestival.cz. Also, don’t hesitate to book your accommodation so you have a place to sleep. 🙂 Information about accommodation can be found here.

Before we start the 10th edition of the Noir Film Festival at Český Šternberk Castle, let’s go to the place where we organized the festival for the first time in 2013 – Kokořín Castle. On Tuesday, August 16, we will dispatch a bus from Český Šternberk with a stop in Prague, which will take you all to Kokořín, where we will screen a characteristic film in its beautiful courtyard – Detour (1945) by Edgar G. Ulmer, whose films we are presenting in this year’s program. Be sure to drop by! We look forward to seeing you there! 😍
FB event here.