ENVIROILM 2011

The International Environmental film festival Envirofilm 2011 comes to the final part of its lead time. In couple of days the whole parade of film showing and events that organisers prepared for all the interested people, environmental documentary lovers and good friends of nature of all age will start.

17^th Envirofilm 2011 will be held from 16^th to 21^st May 2011 in five festival cities (Banská Bystrica, Zvolen, Banská Štiavnica, Kremnica, Krupina). This year’s leitmotiv will be the International year of forests and 40th anniversary of Convention of wetlands (Ramsar, Iran, 1971). This year also cities Dolný Kubín, Poprad and Púchov will join the festival events by projecting the awarded films from the last year and selected films form this year during the festival week.

Statistics
Filmmakers from 33 countries have submitted 156 films to the contest of the film festival.
The largest number of films was submitted by German authors (39 films), then filmmakers from Slovakia (33 films) and Czech Republic (14 films). Other countries: Russia, Italy, Japan, Iran, Spain, China, USA, The Netherlands, France, Australia, Serbia, Hungary, Poland, Armenia, Greece, Portugal, Romania,  Bosnia-Herzegovina, India, Belgium, Turkey, Croatia, Macedonia, Great Britain, Norway, Island, Canada and for the first time also Korea and Indonesia have also took part in the contest.

The pre-selection committee comprising Kateřina Javorská, František Palonder and Ivan Kršiak selected during its meeting from the 24^th to the 27^th February 2011 in Banská Bystrica 47 films (form 17 countries) that will be evaluated by the international jury, as well as the children's jury. The majority of selected films were made by German and Slovak authors (11). The children's jury will be selecting from 5 films.

The International festival jury met from 14^th - 17^th April 2011 in a mountain village Špania Dolina near Banská Bystrica. The jury recommended to award in total 16 prizes. The children's jury meeting on 18th May 2011 in the Movie-theatre of the Museum of the Slovak National Uprising will award a prize too. For the first time in the history of the festival there will be The Audience Award. It will be announced after the festival is over, after showing of the winning films on Saturday 21^st May 2011 in the Movie- theatre of Europa Cinemas in Banská Bystrica and after that the festival Envirofilm 2011 will be declared closed. Members of the International Festival Jury of Envirofilm 2011 are Kateřina Javorská (SVK, scriptwriter, dramaturge), Ferenc Varga (National park Bükk, Hungary), Miroslav Kačor (jury chairman, journalist, film producer, scriptwriter, director, CZE) Fidyk Andrzej (Poland) and František Palonder (director, scriptwriter, SVK).

Film showing
During the festival week in Banská Bystrica (Europas Cinemas) there will be 57 films showed (almost 35 hours of showing), 47 of them are competing films. Other films form the Slovak Film Institute archive focus on the International year of the forests and the subjects of the films from Ecomove International are climate changes and renewable energy. The longest competing film is the documentary from Nederland “The last days of Shismaref” (93 minutes), the shortest films is “The Energy saving lamps: Toxic fumes” (Germany, 6 minutes). The evening programme of the first festival day will be devoted to the film “He changed the face of the Shanghai” and his director Ladislav Kaboš. After the end of the showing of this film there will be a discussion with the director and the architect Klára Kubičková. The film presets the life and work of architect Ladislav Hudec born in Banská Bystrica, who significantly affected the face of Shanghai.
The film showing for children and youth will be held inside the Monument of the Slovak National Uprising. The films from this and last years of Envirofilm will be showed every day in the morning, in total approximately 20 hours of showing.

Green World
One of the traditional events accompanying the festival Envirofilm for several years is The International Contest of Children’s and Youth’s Artistic Creativity Green World. The main theme of the 16^th year of the contest is “Forests for water and wetlands”. Also this year it is held under the patronage of Slovak commission for UNESCO, European Environmental Agency and with cooperation with The European Commission representation.147 schools from Slovakia have participated in the this year’s contest by submitting 1024 works. The schools from abroad have submitted 76 works (Belarus, Serbia, Poland, Czech Republic, China, Romania and Latvia).In total 939 authors (72 from abroad) participated at this year’s Green World with 1100 art works. The members of the jury of Green World competition were Ladislav Vojtuš, Tomáš Čepek a Leo Redlinger. The exhibition and the awarding ceremony of the Green World competition will traditionally take place on the first day of the festival (16^th May 2011 inside the Monument of the Slovak National Uprising in Banská Bystrica).

Envirofilm and children

On the first festival day the pupils on the square of Slovak National Uprising (Námestie SNP) will make an attempt for the new Slovak record. Almost 6 600 pupils form 18 primary schools from Banská Bystrica, Zvolen, Banská Štievnica, Krupina, Levice and Sereď have been collecting plastic cups from yogurts for two months. They will use them and PET bottles to create the logo of the festival Envirofilm on the main square. It will be the fourth attempt for a record in the Slovak book of records.
Children can experience “The road of plastics”. They can learn how the plastics are produced, separated, recycled and again used while having fun. In the Area of the Monument of Slovak National Uprising there will be games and competitions held for children and youth on the theme “Forests for water and wetlands”. For cleaner Urban forest-parks Laskomer and Urpín is a competition for schools in Banská Bystrica in cleaning of the city which will culminate by awarding the best school during the festival Envirofilm 2011. Moreover the pupils will make their contribution by gracing of the litter baskets in the city. There will be also the awarding of students of University of Technology in Zvolen and winners of the international project International designer workshop Green emotions, innovative housing that protects nature during the festival.  The exhibition will be presented in the Europa SC. The filmmakers and guests of the festival will this year again come to please the children in the Children’s Faculty Hospital of Roosevelt Hospital.

Accompanying events in the city of Banská Bystrica

From all the various events accompanying the festival in the city of Banská Bystrica we mention for example the showing of the Slovak documentaries, made in STV which are contracted with the state. This year the filmmakers and permanent guests of the festival Pavol Barabáš and Steve Lichtag will again not disappoint their fans. In the program „Poles of our Earth” they will guide you through the ice plains, endless ocean, dark underground, magical Himalaya and the most difficult canyon of the world the Trou de Fer. Quality instead of quantity in the nature protection in Slovak Republic is the theme of the disscussion focused on a proposed law about the nature protection, zonation of  The High Tatras national park TANAP, number and quality of protected regions in Slovakia between the Minister of the Environment of Slovak Republic Mr. Józsefom Nagy, experts: Rastislav Rybanič (Ministry of the Environment of Slovak Republic), Ján Zuskin (State Nature Conservancy of the Slovak Republic), Ján Topercer (Comenius University, Botanical garden Blatnica), Marián Jasík (Institute of Natural Conservation) and public. There will be a three day conference “Wetlands for the future”  held during the festival within the 40^th  anniversary of engagement of wetlands and 10th  anniversary of State Nature Conservancy of the Slovak Republic. One of the accompanying events is the seminar on “Planning instruments of our towns and cities for the biodiversity protection” and the meeting of the ASPEK (Association of Industrial Ecology in Slovakia) Presidium.


The city of Zvolen prepared for the visitors of the competing films showing, also showing of films from the archive of the Slovak Film Institute (SFÚ) and films from the archive of The Forestry and Timber Museum in Zvolen. The films for children and youth will be showed in the The Regional Library of Ľ .Štúr and there will be an environmental competition held in The Arboretum Borová hora.

The Envirofilm in the city of Banská Štiavnica will be held in the The Movie Theatre Akademik, Tea house Klopačka, in The Slovak Mining Museum, Kammerhof and its Old castle, but also in the Kysihýbel Arboretum and in The Museum in town Sv. Anton, were the exhibition „Forest for people and people for the forest“–on theme of the International Year of Forests 2011 will be held. During the festival will The Old castle be the centre of The Festival of arts, crafts and entertainment.  

In the city of Kremnica the Envirofilm 2011 will start already on Sunday 15^th May. Actor Milan Kňažko will be the guest at the opening ceremony of the festival. After the
discussion with the artist, there will be the showing of one of the Slovak classics Nevesta hôľ, directed by Martina Ťapák, where Mr.Kňažko played one of the main roles.

The youngest festival member the city of Krupina joined the (pre)festival events already in March and April during the World Water Day and The Earth Day. Other events will be held in May- Creation of art works from used plastics, hiking trip to Sitno together with cleaning of the hiking trail and springs and The Night at the Andrej Sládkovič Museum.The citizens of Krupina will Follow the trail of The Northern Lapwing during the festival week and they will be exploring the swamps and wetlands in the region Hont.

Some interesting facts
Envirofilm 2011 is the first environmental film festival in the Slovak Republic which has used recycled paper (revive 50) for its promotional materials (posters, leaflets, catalogues...).
By printing of the catalogue it is: cover- revive 50, gloss, 250 g/m², inside- revive 50, silk, 115 g/m². Although the number of copies is not high (500 issues), lowering the negative impact on the environment was proved by the number of issues. By using the recycled paper revive 50 instead of paper form non-recycled wood pulp was the impact on the environment lowered by following numbers: 71 kg waste, 23 kg CO₂ greenhouse gasses, 1 724 litres of water, 167 kWh of electric energy, 111 kg wood. The usage of the FSC certified paper is also new. Envirofilm is again the first environmental festival that uses this paper for printing the promotional materials. 

ENVIROFILM is an international film festival the main theme of which is nature and environment protection. Its objective is to present, confront and initiate, in international scale, production of films and TV programmes focused on nature and environment protection, enrich general public knowledge and increase their activity in this field, as well as promote education towards nature and environment protection. It is held under the patronage of European Commissioner for Environment Janez Potočnik, the Slovak Commission for UNESCO and in cooperation with the European Commission Representation in Slovakia. The Ministry of the Slovak Republic is the main guarantor of ENVIROFILM and the Slovak Environmental Agency is the festival organizer. Envirofilm is a member of the International Association of Environmental Festivals ECOMOVE International.