The star of the KRRR festival! Producer of Star Wars - Deník.cz

"We try to present films that at the time of their release created an extraordinary response and which are unlikely to be shown on the big screen today," said director of Mír 70 cinema Pavel Tomešek.

In the 1970s, narrative expensive films were shown, where the story was enhanced by a brilliant image. This year, the festival will present, for example, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade or Death Trap, which were once indispensable in any home video library.

The fans showed the greatest interest in the film by screenwriter George Lucas and director Richard Marquand Star Wars: Episode 6 – Return of the Jedi, which will be personally presented in Krnov by the main star of the festival: Star Wars producer Rick McCallum.

Festival of the seventies made Krnov famous

The Mír 70 cinema in Krnov doesn't have the seventies in its name for nothing. It is currently the last cinema in the countries of the Visegrad Four (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary) that is able to show film copies 70 mm wide, or seventies. The film image takes up an incredible 105 square meters of slightly curved screen and thus offers the sharpest picture imaginable.

The entire projection technology in 70mm format with the original up to six-channel magnetic sound recording was preserved in Krnov thanks to the fandom of the director of the Mír 70 cinema, Pavel Tomešek. "I visited cinemas all over the country looking for spare parts for projectors and other components necessary for the operation of 70mm projection," confided Tomešek.

50 years ago, the 70mm format, which is almost unused today, dazzled moviegoers with its brilliant display of details and, at the time, unsurpassed surround sound. The disadvantage was the huge cost of producing film copies, which were very heavy and bulky. The 1970s offered almost three times more detail and greater depth of field than regular films. The problem was the weight, which for one film copy can be up to 160 kg including the packaging.

Festival projectors in Krnov are also weightlifters.

How did it all start? The 70mm film format was invented by Michael Todd in 1955. The first film in the world shot on 70mm tape was the American musical Oklahoma! made just by Mike Todd. The Western European equivalent of Todd's invention was the Superpanorama 70. The Soviets and the former GDR also invented their version of this technique. The first 70mm film was shown in the Krnov cinema on May 23, 1969, and it was Fantastic Men on Flying Machines.

The biggest box office hit of the 1970s was Butterfly, which sold out 14 performances in a week!

There wasn't much left and the seventies in Krnov rang for good. In 1992, the Krnov cinema also succumbed to the general world tendency to exchange the unbeatable image quality for the quality of digitally transmitted sound. After a fourteen-year hiatus, Pavel Tomešek came up with the idea of ​​returning to the seventies, at least nostalgically, for a few days a year in the form of a festival. The first years were held under the name (Ves)Mír je nás svět, then they were followed by the name Krrr!

"The year 2006 was a starting year for us, we count it as the zero year. We needed to find out whether we could handle the organization and, above all, whether there would be interest from the audience. Year 0 proved that our idea was not bad at all, participation increases year by year. The films began to be accompanied by professional seminars and media interest. Today, film experts all over Europe know about the 1970s in Krnov. Of course, I wouldn't have been able to do any of this on my own without a group of equally interested enthusiasts and without the support of the city," Pavel Tomešek pointed out.

"Thanks to the popularity that the Krnov 70mm film festival has already gained, we are able to establish cooperation with world archives and private collectors of the 1970s," confided Tomešek.

And what will this year's Krrr! festival be like? "The oldest film will be In the Footsteps of the Saviour, which was shot 45 years ago. We got a copy from the German archive, which is equipped with German dubbing and, unfortunately, is already losing a lot of color. For example, the forty-year-old High Blue Wall is, however, stable in color. Even films that have been additionally enlarged onto 70mm filmstrip are color stable. Among them are Edward Scissorhands or Deadly Trap, filmed 25 years ago. On the contrary, there will certainly be no problems with Paul Thomas Anderson's youngest film Master, which was shot on 70mm tape last year," added Tomešek.

Film festival Crrr! has its own movie theme song every year. While last year it was the travel pun Say Krrr!, this year's jingle was filmed by director Tomáš Klein right in Krnov. Its central motif is a trio of scientists in yellow spacesuits, who set out with strange measuring devices to find out why Krnov makes the mysterious sound Krrrr! Filming in Krnov was complicated by frost and unexpected snow flurries. (you can watch the ringtone here - part 1, part 2, part 3)

The main star of the festival will be Rick McCallum

To the festival Krrrr! this year, film producer Rick McCallum, who became famous for his collaboration with George Lucas, will be the main star. As a producer, he is signed to the last installments of Star Wars, which completed the most famous film saga of all time.

Although he was born in Germany, he fell in love with the charm of Prague, which he discovered while filming Young Indiana Jones. In 2002, he married Češka Šárka Šulcová, with whom he moved from the USA to Prague. Even before that, McCallum decided to leave Lucasfilm, founded by George Lucas, after 23 years. Apparently, he's not the only Star Wars fan who has had a hard time coming to terms with the news that Lucasfilm has been bought by the Walt Disney Company.

After moving to Prague, the McCallums founded the company ESR Production. In an interview, Rick McCallum revealed his dream that he would like to do for Prague what Woody Allen did for Manhattan. He is a vocal critic of the deteriorating conditions of the film industry in the Czech Republic, due to which film crews are moving in droves to Hungary for relief and incentives. McCallum had a hard time bearing the appearance of former president Václav Klaus against the support of film art.

In interviews with the Czech media, McCallum likes to remind that the Czech film industry not only employs eight thousand filmmakers and actors, but thousands of their partners and suppliers depend on it. Foreign film crews make money for Czech hotels, restaurants, carriers and construction companies. For example, just during the filming of Young Indiana Jones, which was created in the years around the breakup of Czechoslovakia, McCallum's filmmakers spent over 90 million dollars in our territory.

So far, the last major film produced by Rick McCallum, Red Tails, about war pilots three years ago brought over thirty million dollars to Prague. Today, McCallum finds it hard to bear the fact that only a fraction of filmmakers go to Prague to shoot compared to how it used to work here. According to McCallum, it is not just about the money that foreign filmmakers spent in our country. For example, his Star Wars, filmed in Australia, attracted millions of tourists to Australia from all over the world. A similar effect could also be had by McCallum's film Last Holiday, which was shot in Karlovy Vary and sold ten million copies worldwide on DVD alone.

When Václav Klaus expressed the memorable idea that film cannot be prioritized over other forms of art when distributing subsidies, Rick McCallum declared that the president's adviser must have been either completely incompetent or an idiot who did not understand the residual economic value of film. On the other hand, as a filmmaker, Václav Klaus himself is highly respected for his great performance in front of the camera, thanks to which the clip Chilské pero became the most watched short film of all time with the Czech in the lead role.

A purely Czech project by Rick McCallum should become the film directed by Tomáš Mašín Zatím dobrý, which should translate the contradictory story of the group around the Mašín brothers into a film. The controversy is saved by the fact that in our country there are two approximately equally strong camps, which consider the Machines either dirty killers or national heroes and resistance fighters. The substance that still divides Czech society should refresh the viewers' memory.

According to Rick McCallum, the mission of the film is definitely not to decide the dispute between supporters and opponents of the Machines, it just wants to convey to the audience emotions that will make them think about what a person is capable of doing in protecting the right to freedom and how far one can go in borderline situations . What the Mašíns experienced under Nazism or under the Communists can be met with by opponents of the regime in a similar way today, for example in Belarus or Russia.

The film about lonely heroes in a society ruled by totalitarian regimes should premiere next year.

Program of the KRRR festival! in Krnov cinema Mír 70

FRIDAY 12/04/2013 14.00 Edward Scissorhands USA (1990) CZK 100. Director Tim Burton tells the story of a hero with scissors instead of hands, who is not quite human, although he behaves more humanly than most of the people around him. 16.15 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade USA (1989) CZK 100. Director Steven Spielberg filmed the third adventure of the well-known archaeologist, which this time he will experience alongside his father. The result was one Oscar and two nominations. 19.30 Hello, Dolly! USA (1969) CZK 120. The well-known story of the matchmaker Dolly Levi, performed by Barbra Streisand, 3 times Oscar and 4 nominations. 11.00 pm Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi USA (1983) 100 CZK. Director Richard Marquand filmed the conclusion of one of the greatest sagas of the science fiction genre. Interestingly, the ending of Star Wars was filmed before the beginning.

SATURDAY 13/04/20139.00 In the footsteps of the Savior of the USA (1968) CZK 80. The fictional story of the first Russian Pope is considered a prophecy or a parable that predicted the future Pope John Paul II.13.15 High Blue Wall Czechoslovakia (1973) CZK 80. The first full-length 70s with a six-track MG recording made in Czechoslovakia. Socialist propaganda with ridiculous pathos. emphasizes the need to defend the airspace by all means and the impenetrability of the western borders The story takes place in 1951 in the army. Aviation fans are amused by the fact that the imperialist planes are repainted L-29 Delfín machines. 17.15 Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi USA (1983) 100 CZK. 20.00 2010: The Second Space Odyssey USA (1984) 120 CZK. Director Peter Hyams tried to follow up on Stanley Kubrick. A Russian-American crew sets out on a journey to Jupiter to find out what happened to the ship Discovery and what secrets the mysterious monolith hides. During the rescue operation, a military confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union breaks out on Earth. 22:30 Master USA (2012) 100 CZK, The youngest film in the show is the story of ex-soldier Freddie, who tries to control his rage with alcohol and gradually becomes a homeless outlaw. . His life is changed by a fateful meeting with the charismatic Master (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who intends to present his new teaching to the world with a group of his followers. The master undertakes his "treatment" and a very strong and unusual bond develops between the two men.

SUNDAY 14/04/2012 10:00 AM Death Trap USA (1988) CZK 100, Now a classic film, New York policeman John McClane (Bruce Willis) came to Los Angles to spend Christmas with his family, but his plans were thwarted by terrorists. 12.45 Edward Scissorhands USA (1990) 100 CZK .14.45 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade USA (1989) 100 CZK.

Tickets for the festival can be purchased both for individual performances and in the form of more affordable accreditation for two days for 600 crowns or for three days for 750 crowns. Film Club members and students can also apply for a discount on this event.