Academia Film Olomouc

Origin and early years

Academia Film Olomouc logo

Academia Film Olomouc was established in 1966 by the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, Short Film Prague and Palacký University, inspired by a festival of didactic films in Padua, Italy, also held within the university campus. Short Film Prague, the main promoter of the festival from its beginning, had been producing educational films since the 1950s, by film-makers including Jiří Lehovec, Jan Calábek and Bohumil Vošáhlík. These films presented current scientific discoveries and innovations so as to be comprehensible to students and schoolchildren, as well as scientists, and gained an international reputation at the time. In addition, the 1950s and 1960s saw the Czechoslovak State Film create a separate department dealing with similar topics.

Collaboration between the university and the film industry was a logical way to introduce the general public to up-to-date scientific ideas. The festival in Padua became a model for staff at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, who turned to Palacký University, known for an active programme of cultural events in the 1960s. The university professor Jiří Stýskal sponsored the first screenings of science documentary films in Olomouc with his colleagues Eduard Petrů, Alena Štěrbová and Miroslav Tomšů in 1966. Twelve months later, after its positive reception, the festival was given the name Academia Film.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the festival and its popularity grew. The Czechoslovak Television participated in the festival, enriching the festival program with educational films and shows. Interest in AFO increased in the 1980s and the number of competition films grew.^[1] What started as a small university event became a festival that drew the attention of the wider public. AFO reacted to the growth of the video phenomenon in 1986 by including in its program one of the first video projections in Czechoslovakia. Festival expanded its program and gave space to video projection documenting scientific and technical procedures. The video programs got their own program block called Videoforum.^[2]

Post-Communism

In the 1990s, AFO became an international festival, but experienced existential problems due to the termination of state funding. While still receiving funding from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, and the Ministry of Culture, the festival was increasingly forced to rely on private sponsors. In 2001, the festival moved part of its operations to the Regional Museum, where a video forum, media forum and film bar were set up, with Schneider telling MF Dnes Newspaper that the move was "a way of bringing the event closer to the audience".[1] The festival was renamed as the International Festival of Documentary Films and Multimedia Educational Programs. A big change important for the current form of the festival came in 2007. The responsibility of organizing the festival taken on by the Department of Theatre, Film and Media Studies of Palacký University, with Petr Bilík as the director and started working with the JSAF, non-governmental organization (NGO) which organizes the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival. The festival changed its name to the International Festival of Science Documentary Films, with the motto "Watch and Know" defining the festival specifically as an educational and science documentary film festival and boosting its international character. Since then, AFO has been devoting more space to educational programs by organizations like the BBC and the Discovery Channel. In 2013, the festival statutes were published defining the goals and purpose of the festival as well as its organizational structure and which still apply today.

Dramaturgy

The dramaturgy team, which consists mostly of members actively involved at Palacký University, takes care of the festival program. The program sections are tied to an umbrella topic which changes every year. The festival focus is primarily on a non-fiction document touching upon scientific and socio-scientific topics, scientists, research results, ethics connected to pushing the limits of human knowledge and access to education. The overall aim of the festival program is to show that audio-visual works are the most powerful tool for science popularization as well as proper stimuli to education and critical thinking.

The festival program has four main areas: competition, thematic section, Industry 4Science for the professional public, and accompanying program (concerts, exhibitions, performances). The core of the festival competition is a careful pre-selection of the films by the dramaturgy team. This team explores current production in the science documentary field and approaches relevant production groups (for example during the World Congress of Science & Factual Producers). There were about 4000 submitted films for the competition and about 40 of them were selected to their respective competition categories. The expert juries, which consist of Czech and international authors, producers, scientists and publicists, choose the winners of particular competition categories.

Dramaturgy of the festival is closely tied to the aims of AFO:

• To present science, research and technology to the general public as fascinating and crucial fields of human activity and inherent part of our culture and society.
• To approach the broad public with current as well as future burning issues of our civilization, planet and space.
• To connect the academic sphere and scientific institutions with professionals from television and film industry and other cultural institutions.
• To support creation of new educational films, TV broadcasts and other multimedia formats.
• To encourage and form active and critical thinking audiences.^[3]

Festival Awards

The festival competition consists of several categories to which the filmmakers may submit their works. Thousands of films from all around the world are submitted every year. The dramaturgy team makes a narrower film selection to be presented to the juries and festival audience.

Thematic Sections

Besides the festival competitions, the main content of the festival program is presented through the thematic sections. These thematic program sections are meant to connect academic and scientific environment with the broad public to which the current relevant topics are introduced. The theme of each section is tied to the annual umbrella topic of given festival year. Every dramaturge curates one of the thematic sections for which they select films, tv shows, lectures, workshops, guests and accompanying program. AFO Junior is one of the regular thematic sections. This one targets children and youth. It runs in cooperation with the Na Cucky Theatre, Fort Science and ČT:D TV channel. There are special screenings, thematic workshops, virtual reality, basics of filmmaking techniques or animation workshops awaiting the visitors.

Accompanying Program

The AFO team prepares an accompanying program which runs during the festival days as well as during the year. The visitors can enjoy exhibitions, workshops, special screenings, site-specific events or use the festival InfoPoint in KOMA module. These events are meant to offer a new, often unexpected, points of view to various scientific topics. During the past years, the visitors could see, for example, a huge ice cube in the festival graphic design at Horní náměstí, virtual reality in Auditorium Maximum, AFO graffiti and street art in Olomouc, outdoor screenings at the square, they could also taste special science drinks or explore the 3D printer. Over the rest of the year, the AFO Kino film screenings are organized in cooperation with Kino Metropol. The music program is an important part of the festival. It presents Czech as well as foreign musicians, who connect music and science; this includes mostly alternative music artists who overlap a variety of genres, connect them and are not afraid to experiment.

AFO Echoes

AFO Echoes bring the best movies of the given festival year to other cities and towns. The aim is to bring current scientific topics to audiences, which did not have the chance to join the screenings during festival week. This way the organizers wish to motivate the general public to be more engaged in science. The film screenings and debates are held in such spaces as observatories, schools, cafés, cinemas.