Michaela Pavlátová

Godmother of the festival

The festival pays tribute to a living director who is a reference in the world of animation for his/her creativity, innovation and worldwide recognition.

>> IMAXINARIA with Michaela Pavlátová:

Michaela Pavlátová by Dalibor Glück

MICHAELA PAVLÁTOVÁ (Praga, 1961)

The director, animator, illustrator, and Czech actress, Michaela Pavlátová, is a reference in international animation. Her animated short films have received numerous awards at international film festivals, including the Annecy Crystal, the Golden Bear at the Berlinale, and the Grand Prize at the Hiroshima International Animation Festival, as well as an Oscar nomination. In 2021, she completed her first animated feature film, My Sunny Maad, which was awarded at Annecy, Guadalajara, and won the César Award for Best Animated Film, as well as being nominated for the 2022 Golden Globes. As an experimental feminist animator, Michaela’s work explores themes related to sex, gender, philosophy, and human relationships, always using her unmistakable graphic style and sense of humor. Michaela Pavlátová is Director of the Animation Department of FAMU (Academy of Performing Arts, Film and TV School of Prague), she also taught at VSUP (Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in Prague), and abroad, in San Francisco (Academy of Art College, Computer Arts Institute, CCAC), and at Harvard University. She is currently working on a new animated feature, Night Tram, featuring the main protagonist from her short film, Tram.

8M: screening + Q&A

>> friday march 8th | 17:30h – MY SUNNY MAAD [MI FAMILIA AFGANA]

MICHAELA PAVLÁTOVÁ | 65 min | Germany | 2021 | +12

Annecy Film Festival: Jury Prize 2021, Golden Globes: Nominated for Best Animated Film 2022, César Awards: Best Animated Film 2022

Three months before the withdrawal of the American troops from Afghanistan, Michaela Pavlátová won the Jury Prize in Annecy for this film, which precisely addresses the situation of women in post-Taliban Kabul. Pavlátová couldn’t have imagined the urgency that would then surround the story of Herra, a Czech woman who falls in love with an Afghan, marries him, and moves to Kabul, where she begins a new chapter in her life learning to coexist with her husband’s large family. The film is an adaptation of the novel “Freshta,” in which the Polish journalist Petra Procházková tells about her personal experience. A film that deals, without easy solutions and with humour, with the complexity of Afghan society, and in particular the place of women in it.

Retrospective

Řeči, řeči, řeči... [Palabras, palabras, palabras…]

Michaela Pavlátová | 8 min | Czech Republic | 1991 | +12

Oscar nominee, Grand Prix winner at the Montreal, Ankara and Hamburg festivals, among others

In a noisy bar packed with people, the extraordinarily diverse clientele interacts, converses, and ultimately conflicts with each other, through a series of colorful and lively bubbles emanating from the speakers’ mouths. Amidst a sea of tables and chairs, a calm waiter observes and catches intermittent snippets of private conversations, as the regulars around him chat incessantly. In the end, words can be rich and emotional; sharp and pitilessly accurate; cryptic or straightforward; however, what would human beings be without them?

Repete

Michaela Pavlátová | 9 min | Czech Republic | 1995 | +16

Berlin Film Festival: Golden Bear (Best Short Film 1995), Hiroshima International Animation Festival: Grand Prix (1996), Czech Critics’ Awards: Best Animated Film (1996).

Philosophical comedy about romantic relationships. The anchor point is a man walking his dog. As they walk, we encounter three simultaneous scenes: a woman feeding her husband; a woman freeing a suicidal man before rejecting him, which leads him back to trying suicide again; and a couple’s attempt to make love being interrupted by a ringing phone. The couples repeat their routines over and over until the dog breaks free, causing chaos in which the three couples collide and mix. New possibilities are revealed, at least temporarily. Funny, beautifully animated and edited, Repeat is a small animated gem about the danger, boredom, and inevitability of falling senselessly into repetitive life cycles.

Karneval zvírat [ANIMAL’S CARNIVAL]

Michaela Pavlátová | 11 min | Czech Republic | 2006 | +16

Grand Prix Anifest 2006 at the International Animation Film Festival of Trebon (Czech Republic) and Grand Prix Cinanima in Espinho, Portugal 2006.

In eight movements inspired and accompanied by the music of Camille Saint-Saëns, this animated short film is a mini-symphony about sexual fantasy. A series of animated musical vignettes that show many facets of erotic love.

Tram

Michaela Pavlátová | 7 min | Czech Republic | 2012 | +16

Two awards at the Annecy Festival 2012: Best Short Film and FIPRESCI Award, Official Selection at Cannes Festival, Special Jury Prize at the Hiroshima International Film Festival and SACEM Award at the Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival (2013).

On her morning route before the break of dawn, a conscientious but lonely tramcar conductress lets herself go, turning her overpowering impulses and her wild wet fantasies into a phallic and utterly surreal delirium.