Geraldine Chaplin to visit Febiofest

Prague, Feb 7 (CTK) - American actress Geraldine Chaplin, 68, will be one of the honorary guests to the 20th Febiofest international film festival to be held in Prague on March 14-22, its president Fero Fenic has told journalists.

After the Prague part of the festival, its echoes will continue in another 12 towns.

Febiofest offers 180 films this year that will be screened in nine cinemas of the Cinestar Andel multiplex. The accompanying concerts will be held in the complex's garages as well as in the Malostranska beseda club in the city centre.

The programme includes, for instance, a Finish film retrospective, a new competition section of medium-length films and a special section focused on the film-makers who received the festival's Kristian award for their contribution to world cinematography in the past.

The festival's main guest will be Geraldine Chaplin, daughter of British comic actor and film-maker Charlie Chaplin, who has appeared in tens of films. Among her most famous roles is Tonya in David Lean's legendary Oscar-winning film Doctor Zhivago (1965).

She also played in films of Spanish director Carlos Sausra as well as U.S. Robert Altman and French film-makers Alain Resnais and Claude Lelouche. In Richard Attenborough's Chaplin film biography of her father she appeared in the role of her own grand-mother.

At the press conference on Wednesday, Fenic also pointed to the problems to secure finances for the low-budget film event.

The festival has annually attracted over 60,000 film fans in the past years.

Fourteen films will compete in the New Europe section. A 33-member jury of film viewers will choose the winner of Grand Prix in this section.

Festival programme director Hana Cielova said the event would for the first time present a competition of medium-length films, including a Mexican thriller, a sarcastic absurd slapstick from Sweden, a Polish satirical black comedy, a Moldovan neo-realistic story of a country funeral, a poetic film from Turkey, an Israeli road-movie and an Oscar-nominated American film shot in Kabul.

In reaction to the viewers' wish, the festival has increased the number of films from the Balkan countries. It will screen seven of them this year.

The Febiofest festival is also traditionally held in the neighbouring Slovakia where it starts on March 15.