The city of Győr once again hosts the Mediawave film and music festival, which has reached cult status in central and eastern Europe.
Part international film competition, part concert series featuring jazz, ethno, folk, alternative and electronic music, the festival also features workshops for young people and adults, art and photography exhibitions, theater and dance performances and culinary and nature programs. One special feature of the festival is that 20 cities in Slovakia, Romania and Poland will participate, holding Mediawave events of their own to complement the main event here in Hungary.
This year, a jury chose from among 1084 film entries from 66 countries. Sixty-one films will compete at the festival, with a total prize value of €15,000. The international jury includes Hungarian director Ferenc Török, Russian documentary filmmaker Ella Davletsina and Iranian actress and director Samira Sinai, among others.
Oscar-winning director Jiri Menzel will be the special guest of the 2008 Mediawave Festival, which will commemorate the 40th anniversary of the revolutionary events of the spring of 1968. In the US, demonstrations against the Vietnam War in the US, the civil rights movement and the hippie subculture led a social upheaval, while in Western Europe, French students rallied. Here in Eastern Europe, the revolt now known as the Prague Spring was crushed by Soviet Union forces. Those events inspired Mediawave to include a conference on the long-term effects of the events of 1968, a showing of Menzel’s “Closely Watched Trains” (1968) and music recreating the Woodstock atmosphere on the banks of the river, with British jazz-blues-rock band Ten Years After.
The music program continues with David Murray and the Black Saint Quartet representing American jazz, gospel band the Campbell Brothers, Norwegian singer Kristen Asbjornsen, and Djabe with special guest saxophonist John Nugent.
Cross-cultural and cross-media productions also take center stage at Mediawave, with the European premiere of Shades of Jazz on Noir, a montage of film noir clips combined with live music by Hungarian, American, German and Polish musicians, directed by Ana Isabel Ordonez. A fashion design competition documented by makers of short films, and puppet theater productions – for adults – present other unusual facets of visual arts.
Dates: April 26th – May 3rd
For more information, see www.mediawave.hu
