Inaugural Music on Film Festival opens in Prague
This weekend, Prague is hosting its first-ever Music on Film - Film on Music Festival. This event hopes to excite the city's denizens with a sizzling showcase of films which explore and celebrate music. It will be showing 84 music-based films of varying length, including three world premieres.
"Well about a year ago, we saw that there was an aviation-themed festival [here] and there are a lot more themed festivals appearing around the world, and we thought that, although we wouldn't be the first music film festival, we'd like to do one in Prague. This city is a fitting place for this kind of festival because of its musical history and traditions. The other founders and I all love music and we all love film. So combine them and we figure we've got a good recipe for entertainment."
Festival highlights include a screening of the classic silent film Nosferatu accompanied by live music from DG307, a band comprising some surviving members of the renowned Czech rock group Plastic People of the Universe.
There will also be screenings of some films by the Academy-award winning music-documentary maker Allan Miller, who is himself a guest of the festival.
Besides films with a musical theme the festival will also be complemented by live musical performances. John Caulkins says he would like to see the festival develop into a major annual event in Prague, which would regularly celebrate both music and film. Much will depend on how successful this year's event will be, but Mr Caulkins is cautiously optimistic:
"Well we are hoping to get as many people as possible to come out to the Lucerna Cinema, which is the main venue along with Kino Svetezor. We have a lot of live music throughout the festival... So we're hoping that people will come down and enjoy various kinds of music - we've a lot of live bands and some dance workshops as well as various other things. It should be a good fun atmosphere. [We want] to get people to enjoy the music and decide what films interest them. They should then go inside and enjoy the cinema - the Lucerna is one of the oldest cinemas in Europe and a landmark for the city of Prague."
Anyone interested in finding out more about the festival can visit its website at www.filmonmusic.cz
