EKOFILM Film Festival starts in exactly one week and festival will offer 25 competition films, exhibitions, talks as well as a popular family day

The 47th edition of EKOFILM the international film festival with an environmental theme starts in exactly one week. Visitors can look forward to twenty-five competing documentaries from all over the world from 20th to 23rd October. The festival will open with a panel titled Green Architecture: A Place to Live in the 21st Century, musicians in the streets of Brno dressed in EKOFILM T-shirts and a grand opening concert by the Brass Avenue band. There will also be an accompanying programme full of discussions and workshops, a programme for schools and a popular family day. Admission to the screenings is completely free, just register on the website www.ekofilm.cz/program/.

You can find everything from the programme in festival catalogue, which can be download here.

We have deliberately designed the opening panel so that economists, academics, politicians and people directly from business can comment on the topic of green architecture and housing in the 21st century. After all, people are most responsible for reshaping and adapting the planet for their use in recent centuries. But without a healthy landscape, without space for animals and plants, or without natural resources, our planet will hardly be a place we can call home. At EKOFILM, we will look for ways to live as harmoniously as possible with nature, with our surroundings, with the planet and all its inhabitants, but at the same time to live modern and comfortable lives, perhaps thanks to new technologies, in a way that suits both sides, says Environment Minister Richard Brabec.

I am very pleased that we can welcome to Brno the audience of EKOFILM, of which we are traditionally a proud partner for the seventh time and this time live. In Brno, we are taking the environmental issue head-on and we are already running several projects to help reduce the environmental impact of Brno as much as possible. I am pleased that Brno offers a number of  positive inspirations, such as the promotion of green roofs or natural habitats that help the city and its inhabitants cope with climate change, said Brno Mayor Markéta Vaňková.

Some places right in the centre of Brno will serve as festival venues. We want the city of Brno to be a pleasant place to live after 2030, which is why we are introducing a number of adaptation measures that affect Brno residents and visitors. We are aware of the responsibility we bear, which is why we have launched the #PripravBrno campaign, which summarises the basic 10 steps to prepare our city for climate change. We are working to make Brno greener, more eco-oriented and healthier. EKOFILM, which deals with these topics, has been supported by the city of Brno for a long time. This year we have contributed CZK 450 000 to its organisation, adds Petr Hladík, First Deputy Mayor of Brno.

The screenings will take place in the Scala University Cinema and in the Hall of the Community Centre of the Brno City Centre. In the Scala Chill Out Zone, viewers can look forward to a lecture by one of this year's foreign jurors, Dutch architect and filmmaker Jord den Hollander. The programme also includes a discussion with the organisers of the Open House Brno festival, who show the public places in Brno that are otherwise inaccessible. Moderated by Adéla Elbel.

The organisers ask visitors to observe the current valid anti-pandemic measures.

The 47th edition of Europe's oldest environmental film festival, EKOFILM, will be held again in Brno, from 20th to 23rd October 2021. For up-to-date information, please visit www.ekofilm.cz. 

EKOFILM is supported by the Statutory City of BRNO.