Prague's favorite alternative film festival, Anti Anti Fest, is back and ready to wow audiences once again with works by unknown artists from around the world. The festival, now in its third year, will showcase films and still photography from seven different countries.

Instigator Media Group (IMG), the organization that puts on the event, has put together a program reflecting the philosophy of "blurring borders and crossing boundaries of genre, medium, social norms, nationality and language." Marika Ley, the "instigator-in-chief" at IMG, firmly believes in giving young artists an opportunity to express themselves in a receptive environment.

"There are so many [film festivals] out there, you can't shake a stick without hitting one," she says. "What makes ours different is that it's more of a community production. It's about filmmakers who are just starting out."

Before the festival was organized, IMG sponsored screenings of small, independent films that would not otherwise have been shown in the Czech Republic. The idea of doing a festival evolved from those screenings.

"We had a guy working for us who asked if he could screen his film before one of our shows," Ley says. "I asked him why he didn't screen it at a festival and he said he wasn't allowed to because he was an independent filmmaker and not part of any school. So I thought OK, let's have our own festival."

In its first year, the festival managed to attract an impressive audience. The screening room was packed, and the positive reaction of the crowds encouraged the organizers to return the following year with an expanded schedule.

"In the first year, all the entries were DIY productions, which is great because we opened the festival with the slogan, 'DIY or DIE: How to Survive as an Independent Artist,' " Ley says. "You could tell that it was amateur work, but that's OK, because that was the whole point of the festival. In the second year, the productions were better — not because there was any more money behind it, but because the production levels were higher."

The scope of the festival was also expanded in the second year, from strictly digital media to photography, computer animation and true film. "There are so many amazing things filmmakers can do with technology these days to bring their visions to life, not only with film and digital media but also various forms of animation," notes Brooke Edge, Anti Anti Fest's co-producer.

This year's festival will include narrative and conceptual films, digital and film collages and even a "rock-umentary" from the United States titled Our Lady of the Tamale. There are more international movies as well.

"I know they [the audience] will appreciate how varied this year's installment is on many levels, including subject matter, medium and the wide international field of entries," Edge says.

Beyond pure entertainment, the IMG crew hopes that viewers will walk away with a sense of appreciation for the hard work the artists have put into their pieces, and an appetite for more adventurous programming.