Mezipatra Queer Film Festival begins two-week programme for 2024
Mezipatra, a Czech name that translates to ‘mezzanine’, is an internationally renowned LGBT-focused film festival, and it returns for this year on November 7th. First founded back in 2000, this year’s programme features a rich selection of films from a variety of countries, among which will be the winners of the festival juries’ awards for Best Feature Film and Best Short Film. The festival’s head of programme, Kristýna Genttnerová, spoke to Danny Bate about what awaits fans and viewers this year.
I'd like to start by asking about the name of this film festival: Mezipatra. That translates into English as a ‘mezzanine’. So what was the thinking behind that name for this queer film festival?
“That’s a great question, because I think a lot of our international guests are asking about this. The word means something only in Czech. It’s a mezzanine, meaning something between floors. We want to focus on people who are not seen by the media or by society itself, and they don't have a huge space for their stories. They don't have a space in cinema. So we wanted to focus on queer people and give them their own space at our festival, so they can see stories and films about themselves. They can also meet and have their own private venues at our cinemas, where they can meet and talk about themselves, basically to be together.”
I'm sure that a lot of people attending the festival will really appreciate this great space for them to be themselves and to see themselves in film. So could you tell me about the goals of Mezipatra, specifically the films themselves? What kind of films do you have in the programme this year?
“We have two competitions, and we have ten feature films that are competing in the international feature film competition. Then we have forty-one short films, competing for the Best Short Film award. We have films from all over the world, from Argentina, from Indonesia and from Mexico, and we also have a lot of guests who are coming to speak about their films in Q&As afterwards.”
Where will this be happening? Is it limited to Prague? The film festival began originally in Brno, right?
“Yeah, that's correct, and the first two editions were called ‘Rainbow over Brno’, which is a really nice name. It is still happening in Brno and in Prague, so the Prague part will be from the 7th to the 14th, and in Brno from the 15th to 22nd. We will have the same films, so if you don't manage to get to a film in Prague, you can still go to Brno and see it there.
“We also have a retrospective, this year about Marco Berger, the Argentinian film director, and we are screening three films of his. He will be here and will talk to the audience, so I really recommend catching at least one of his films. They focus on heterosexual men in situations when they are maybe not that heterosexual. It’s like a critique or an analysis of heterosexual men’s relationships, looking at homoerotic desires in macho Latino culture.”
In this long programme, with over two weeks of films, is there one thing that you personally are looking forward to seeing the most?
“I'm looking forward to seeing a film that I've already seen at the Berlinale, which I really recommend go see on the big screen, and it’s called Reas. It’s an Argentinian film too, we’re kind of focusing on Argentina this year. The film is about former inmates in Buenos Aires, who got together to re-enact the stories of what they went through in prison. It’s like a hybrid feature-fiction documentary. They are not only re-enacting their stories, but they are also singing about them. It’s really not your typical musical though, so I recommend this film to people who don't like musicals, because they especially will love this film. It also has a romantic story of course.”
