festival program

Berlin Correspondence, Alžběta Dvořáková (CZ)

This report oscillates between a travel diary, a guidebook, a collection of humorous stories, and an almanack of letters. It starts with email correspondence with home and culminates in a thesis, which aspires to become a book.

Presentation of the Safe Place exhibition and the Ukrainian collective Pictoric (EN)

A safe place is not just a physical location; it is a feeling, an emotional and mental refuge where you can take off your “armour” and be yourself. In the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine, this concept has gained profound and urgent significance. Olena Staranchuk and Oleg Gryshchenko will present the Safe Place exhibition and the activities of the Pictoric collective.

A New Comic Series on the Horizon – Presentation of the First Episode of Mohyla, with Its Author Eva Ondová, Centrala (CZ)

Eva Mária Ondová is an illustrator and comic book author. She has created a variety of illustrations and comics for different publications, including the children’s book ViaNočná Mora z Paríža, the Slovak encyclopedia Beliany, the magazine Slniečko, and the dandelion-themed special AARGH!. She also edits and publishes the horror anthology Zloba, which focuses on short comics. You can also meet her at the Kraťasy collective’s festival market booth.

Slovak Comics and Ten Years of Pomimo Association (SK)

This is a presentation introducing the decade-long activity of the association Pomimo, the comic anthology, the authors associated with it, and upcoming projects. Speakers: Dávid Marcin, Lukáš Freytag

Spanish Comics (EN)

Gerardo Vilches, a historian and comic book critic who teaches at the European University, will talk about the current comic scene in Spain. He is the author of books such as Breve historia del cómic (2014), El guion de cómic (2016), and La satírica transición (2021). He writes about comics for magazines such as Rockdelux, ElDiario.es, and CTXT.

He has curated the Cómics 20 and Cómics 24 exhibitions for Injuve and coordinated the first and second editions of Jornadas de cómic Injuve. He has also been involved in organizing the GRAF festival. Together with Marc Charles, he runs the YouTube channel La Resma, which features interviews with young comic creators.

Family is the Foundation of the State (CZ)

Marital and partner studies in Czech comics of the 20th and 21st century, Martin Foret and Pavel Kořínek

Panel Discussion with Spanish Guests (ES with translation)

Author and illustrator María Medem, Toni Mascaró, and Sergi Pujol from Apa Apa Comics publishing house. Gerardo Vilches will moderate the discussion.

Game ART: Herdek Collective, Prší (CZ)

Herdek will present their game Prší, a detective adventure inspired by Czech pub culture, and will discuss the design and artistic process behind its creation. Herdek is an emerging collective of multimedia creators focused on cultivating the medium of video games.

Game ART – Panel Discussion on Trends in Game Visuals (CZ)

How games replicate various analogue styles and, conversely, how game aesthetics are adopted in, for example, animated film. Panel guests – Zuzana Slavíková, Mikoláš Fišer, Jiří Horáček with Viktória Čižíková. 

FRAME & FRIENDS afterparty

DJ Edits & DJ Blanchita

Norway Comics With Kristian Hellesund (EN with translation)

Presentation of the Baba Jaga Europe project (EN with translation)

Alessio Trabachini (Baba Jaga Festival), David Schilter (kuš!) and Marek (FRAME)

Charles Burns: Black Hole, Last Look, The Labyrinth (CZ with translation)

The questions of why teenagers and why mental instability appear most frequently in Burns’ books will be raised and explored by comic historian Pavel Kořínek and the leader of the Trystero publishing house, Martin Svoboda.

Octobriana, Ondrej Kavalir and Marek Berger (CZ with translation)

Octobriana, the cult sex symbol from the Eastern Bloc, a product of the bizarre mystification by Petr Sadecký, the compromising illegitimate child of deceived artists Bohumil Konečný and Zdeněk Burian… All of this is the Soviet superwoman Octobriana, who in the 1970s captivated David Bowie and other figures of the Western art scene but also caused a scandal in the newly normalised Czechoslovakia. The historically first comic with Octobriana in the lead role presents an epic story from her world, told through the more sensitive lens of the 21st century. Ondrej Kavalir and Marek Berger. Labyrint.

V oku lišky, Kata Rina. Labyrint (CZ with translation)

Suzu enjoys helping her grandmother in her second-hand kimono shop. One day, however, her grandmother ends up in the hospital, and Suzu is left alone in the empty store. The apparent calm is disrupted when a drawer is accidentally opened, revealing an old fox mask, which transports Suzu to another world. She soon realizes that her arrival in this other realm was no accident…

The original release of the comic won the 2022 Japanese International Manga Award.

Ani holka ani kluk, Marto Kelbl. Paseka (CZ with translation)

Marto Kelbl is the author of Ani holka, ani kluk (“Neither Girl nor Boy”): the first Czech-language children’s book that explores the lives of non-binary and trans people through an imagined journey across various societies around the world. The book is based on her thesis They Them, which earned Marto a spot as a finalist in the Czech Grand Design competition. She also won recognition in the Book in Progress competition and received second place in the student category of the Most Beautiful Books of the Year 2020 for her illustrated palindrome collection Tam a zpět (“There and Back”).

What led her to create children’s books? How was Ani holka, ani kluk developed? What is her relationship to the comic book medium? And what is she currently working on? These are some of the questions Jakub Sedláček, the editor-in-chief of Paseka, will ask Marto Kelbl.

Comics Preview (CZ with translation)

Five Czech comic authors will present their latest works: Branko Jelínek, Kačka Illnerová, Karel Osoha, Štěpánka Jislová, Tomáš Motal.