Dear Visitors of the Days of European Film,

they say that the European identity does not exist in its nature. I tis said to be something artificial, something dangerous. But what is the danger? Who and how does impose this identity to us? What ideology frames it? If you visit the Days of European Film dramaturgy has brought a wide selection of contemporary European film productions to Czech cinemas for many years, you will find answers to these questions.

The danger of the European identity is that it constantly reminds us of different views of our present. The selection of the festival offers both fiction and documentary projects, which are not only the apotheosis of liberal European victory over national traditions but a free view of these traditions and their sharing across the continent. The European identity is not forced to us, it only leads us to closer cooperation because the most important things that are being created in the European film today are realized and financed in co-production by various national film institutions.

The quality of film is not measured in Europe today by the content or taste of a domestic audience but by the depth of the author’s testimony and the originality of the script and the mizenscene. Aspects that are not related to short-term political goals but to the basic building blocks of film art and culture in general. Europe today is still standing on the pillars of cooperation, understanding, freedom and democracy.

The films you see at the festival do not need to defend or dogmatically prefer their only possible interpretation. They are simply the result of the possibility of sharing these values ​​in Europe. We live in a politically volatile time, and a trip to the cinema can not do much about it. But it will give you an opportunity to see how this world sees our closest and distant neighbors with whom we live the destiny of Europe. It will not always be a nice look, but as long as we can, do not miss it.

Přemysl Martinek