The tangled web of the urban jungle, woven from long boulevards, dark side streets, cigarette-smoked nightclubs and towering high-rises, is the most typical location of noir stories. However, as we have illustrated in our festival program in the past, tales of fatal crime, destructive passion and toxic relationships have found their place in western settings. It was also not unusual for noir protagonists to flee from their past or recent fatal missteps in life to the mountains or the countryside, where they sought shelter in a desire to restart their lives. The vast American plains and arid deserts also offered them a chance to escape the hustle and bustle and sins of big city life. This is where the films of this year’s main section of DESERT NOIR will be set.

Edward G. Robinson (1893–1973) is familiar to anyone who has been fascinated by the magic of film noir. An actor of not very tall stature but great charisma, he abounded with a shrill voice and a mesmerizing, often almost frightening look in his face of sharply cut features. Before classic film noir came to prominence in American cinema in the early 1940s, Edward G. Robinson made his name in the popular genre of the previous decade: the gangster film. Specifically, the role of the criminal Rico Bandella in Little Caesar (1931). He later portrayed a similarly ruthless ship captain in the film adaptation of Jack London’s novel of the same name, The Sea Wolf (1941). In a much more sympathetic role, he was introduced in the iconic noirs Double Indemnity (1944), The Woman in the Window (1944) and Scarlet Street (1945). Robinson’s acting legacy will be celebrated at this year’s festival with his villainous character Gino Monetti, a tough New York banker at the head of an immigrant family full of dysfunctional relationships, whom he portrayed in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s House of Strangers (1949).

A regular part of our festival program are two tributes to classic Hollywood stars whose faces are distinctly associated with film noir. One of this year’s will belong to actress Kim Novak (*1933), whose acting career was relatively short, but who left behind her unforgettable roles in iconic films such as Preminger’s The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) and Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958). Our 12th edition program will feature the noir Pushover, in which Kim Novak made her film debut in 1954. In this movie directed by Richard Quinn, she portrays a seductive femme fatale who leads a police detective astray, played by Fred MacMurray.

In the Tickets and Passes tab you will find all the information about this year’s prices and values of the so-called generous passes, i.e. NOIR, SPONSOR and PARTNER passes. These can be purchased to support this year’s festival from 1 March 2024 The sale of basic passes will be available from 1 May 2024, and the sale of individual tickets from the date of publication of the complete program, i.e. from 24 June 2024.

Any questions about the generous passes can be directed to the well-known e-mail: tickets/at/noirfilmfestival.cz .

We are announcing the date and venue of the 12th edition:
Noir Film Festival 2024 will take place from 22 to 25 August 2024 again at Český Šternberk Castle. We look forward to seeing you there!

Nine days ago, the excited voices of actors and actresses fell silent in the gothic castle kitchen, so let me thank all those who contributed more or less to the fact that we could enjoy the unique atmosphere of film noir in the exceptional surroundings of Český Šternberk Castle for four days.
A big thank you to the whole festival team who prepared the 11th edition for you in the not-so-favourable temperatures in most of the halls, and I would like to bow to all the patrons and guests who came to support us personally. On behalf of all of them I would like to name the premiere patron, which was the still young 88 year old Libuše Švormová 🙂 !
And last but not least, I want to thank all the big and small partners of the festival, the castle administration, the many donors this year and in fact everyone who bought a ticket for just one single film. I will humbly repeat myself, without all of you we could only dream of the Noir Film Festival… Thank you!
Vitek Grigartzik, executive director of the NFF

Eddie Muller, president of the Film Noir Foundation, which is responsible for the restoration of the Argentine noirs we screened this year, made a video commentary for our festival on these noir gems of 1950s Argentine cinema. Thank you, we are honoured. 🖤

Thank you to our main partners this year, which are the The Central Bohemia Region and innogy.

One of the guests of the Noir Film Festival 2023 will be Giuseppe Boccassini, German-based Italian filmmaker and program director of the renowned Berlin experimental film festival Fracto. His work is regularly featured in film festivals and exhibitions around the world – such as a subversively conceived montage film based on imaginative work with found footage called ragtag, which was screened in the Venice Classics section and and we’re presenting it in a Special Screening at this year’s Noir Film Festival.

Boccassini bases his work on the transformation and manipulation of various sources of archival material – in this case footage from a plethora of classic films noir, which he layers on top of each other in a rapid-fire editing process of multiple repetitions with ingenious soundtrack in loops, in the style of a master DJ, adding new meanings to the original ones and creating a unique, audiovisually intoxicating and unforgettable artifact. Look forward to it! 💥