Not much to be festive about

The economy seems to have taken its toll on Febiofest this year, as the annual film festival, which takes over kino Anděl and scattered satellite screens for a week, has never seemed so dull and desperate. Indeed, the week ahead is more of a festival of sweepings from other, lesser film fests, garnished with a clutch of video store aisle tributes and retrospectives.

There is, as always, a handful of anticipated films from the English-speaking world, which will probably not get proper screenings after Febiofest, such as Atom Egoyan's Adoration, Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York (which Bonton had originally scheduled to open in January and then scrapped), Tom McCarthy's The Visitor, Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky and Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy.

Then there are the "maybe" films - those that might find multiplex life after the festival, such as Edward Zwick's Defiance, Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino, Guy Ritchie's storied comeback, Rocknrolla, and Stephen Daldry's The Reader. But never underestimate the lack of taste in Czech film distribution companies, which made sure that Juno took three years to arrive here, while opening The Unborn and Yes Man in timely fashion. In other words, this might be your only chance to see these films on a large screen before Bride Wars and that much-anticipated cinematic event, the remake of Friday the 13th, swallow multiplex spaces.

Also, as in years past, Febiofest has put together an interesting retrospective of the Czech Republic's cinematic gems. But in typical provincial fashion, the films will not be accessible to any non-Czech speaker, even though there are subtitled versions available for programmers ambitious enough to track them down.

Most of the non-Czech films do come with English subtitles, which makes the absence of such aids to Karel Kachyňa's Ucho and Věra Chytilová's Panelstory even more inexplicable. There are a few exceptions to this overall rule of subtitles, primarily (and infuriatingly) in the festival's retrospective of films from the French New Wave.

However, by some miracle, the premiere of the new Czech documentary Citizen Havel is Rolling Barrels (Občan Havel přikuluje) does screen with English subtitles. For fans of Havel the playwright, this film by the father-and-son team of Jan and Adam Novák will be a must, as it examines Havel's time working at the brewery that inspired his play Audience. The film's talking heads include Jiřina Bohdalová, Pavel Landovský and the former president himself.

Otherwise, the week ahead is a veritable DVD dump bin of past hits (You've Got Mail? Chocolat? Really?), straight-to-video wonders (Choke) and critical nullities (Zack and Miri Make a Porno, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas).

Still, many of the films listed above are worth considering, particularly Synecdoche, New York and Wendy and Lucy. The Visitor is probably also worth making time for as well, especially if you're a fan of director McCarthy's marvelous indie film The Station Agent. His latest film, about a man who returns to his apartment one day to find foreign emigrants living there, also garnered the wonderful character actor Richard Jenkins a best actor nod at the last Academy Awards show.

Among the numerous tributes, the ones to Wim Wenders and Mike Leigh are almost forgetable, even with both directors scheduled to attend. It's their newest films (Wenders' Palermo Shooting and Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky) that save these salutes, which are otherwise a catalog of work that can be easily seen elsewhere at any time. And so a chance to introduce Czechs to Leigh's excoriating Abigail's Party (which, as far as I can tell, has never been subtitled into Czech) has been squandered, while to represent Wenders with Paris, Texas, Wings of Desire, The Buena Vista Social Club and The American Friend (with the exception of the first, all excellent films) is simply lazy programming.

However, there are two other tributes that should be sought out. The first is dedicated to Amir Naderi, the famed Iranian director of The Runner, who now lives in exile in New York. With little in the way of funding, and far from the Hollywood mainstream, Naderi is still creating interesting work. Febiofest offers a chance to see this American phase of his career with Manhattan by Numbers, Marathon, Sound Barrier and his most recent film, Vegas: Based on a True Story.

The other tribute of interest is to Argentinean director Marco Bechis, who is represented by his critically acclaimed film Garage Olimpo, his first film, Fenced In, and his latest film, Birdwatchers. There's also a look at the work of Dogme 95 director Thomas Vinterberg, with his justly celebrated The Celebration and his supposedly disastrous It's All About Love, which was critically hooted off various festival screens, and whose final cut reportedly led its leading lady, Claire Danes, to cry bitterly.

This year's festival might lead you to join her.

Steffen Silvis can be reached at
ssilvis@praguepost.com