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  Envirofilm 2012 starts next week!Next week, on Monday the 14th May, the 18th International Environmental Film Festival ENVIROFILM 2012 starts in eight Slovak cities. The festival was established in 1995 in two cities - Banska Bystrica and Zvolen. Gradually other cities were joining the festival - Banská Štiavnica (1999), Kremnica (2007), Krupina (2010) and in 2012 Košice, Skalica and Poltár. This year for the first time Bratislava cinemas Artkino za Zrkadlom and the film club Lúky (Cultural Facilities of Petržalka) are involved in the festival. They will be projecting, during the festival week, competing films of ENVIROFILM 2012 and award-winning films from the last year. The School at Philip´s in Banská Bystrica has been preparing, in cooperation with the festival organisers, its own Filipkáčsky (Philip´s) Envirofilm also for the first time. For this year’s festival, filmmakers from 32 countries all over the world sent 179 films for the competition, which is a record in ENVIROFILM´s history. German filmmakers also created a record with 43 films. Slovakia competes with 31 films. For the first time, filmmakers from Palestine participate in the festival. The Selection Committee selected 57 films by authors from 19 world countries for the main competition. The International Film Jury met on 12th to 15th April in Banská Bystrica. Its members are Kateřina Javorská (Slovak Republic), Iwona Siekierzynska (Poland), Janka Mesiariková (Slovak Republic), František Palonder (Slovak Republic) and Ferenc Varga (Hungary). The Children’s Jury will meet during the festival on Wednesday, the 16th May. Awards ceremony of the festival will take place on Friday 18th May at the Town Hall in Banská Bystrica Accompanying events traditionally enrich the film part of the festival in all festival cities. The festival participants can enjoy various debates, meetings with interesting people and outstanding personalities, many exhibitions and, of course, events for children. Right on the first day of the festival an attempt for a new Slovak record creation will take place in Banská Bystrica as well as a discussion with the Dutch film director Jan van de Berg. Within the projection of films from the Slovak Film Institute’s archives, the film Martin Slivka - The Man Who Planted Trees by the director Martin Šulík, about the outstanding Slovak documentary filmmaker, will be screened. Undoubtedly, the discussion on the theme of eco-crimes with Ladislav Hanniker, the expert on crime against the environment, and Mikuláš Huba, who was appointed an Environmental Ambassador, will draw attention, as well as a discussion about national parks, which will be attended also by David Barna (U.S. National Park Service), who was in 2010 the member of ENVIROFILM´s international jury. David Barna will visit also Kremnica, Poltár and Skalica. There will be two more guests of the festival – the first Slovak astronaut Ivan Bella and, traditionally, the Slovak documentary filmmaker Pavol Barabáš, who will go also to Kremnica. Festival visitors in Banská Bystrica, Poltár and Skalica will meet also the filmmaker Tomáš Hulík. After a year, the centre of the festival events in Banska Bystrica will again be the SNP Museum. Interesting events during the festival week will take place in Záhrada (Garden) – the Centre of Independent Culture. The evening with Pavol Barabáš will be held at Cinemax in Europa SC. Competing films which, as all members of the international jury noted, are this year of a very high quality not only in terms of filmmaking mastery but also as far as their contents and messages are concerned, are a guarantee of the festival quality in all festival cities International Environmental Film Festival ENVIROFILM 2012 will be held from 14th to 19th May in Banská Bystrica, Zvolen, Banská Štiavnica, Kremnica, Krupina, Košice, Skalica and Poltár. The Ministry of the Environment is the promulgator and the Slovak Environmental Agency (SEA) and the non-profit organisation Envirofilm, n. o. are the organisers of the festival.
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