General information
General information
Established: 1961
Current year of the festival: 65th
When it will take place: 29. 5. – 4. 6. 2025
Location: Zlín, Mikulov, Prague
and other towns in the Czech Republic
Organizer: FILMFEST, s.r.o.
Festival attendance in 2024: 3.326 accredited guests and the festival program was attended by more than 125.000
peoples
Competitive category
- International Competition of Feature Films in the Children’s Category
- International Competition of Feature Films in the Junior Category
- International Competition of Feature Films in the Youth Category
- International Competition of Short Animations for Children
- Competition of European Documentary Films for Young Audience
- International Competition of Student Films Zlín Dog
The main festival awards
- Golden Slipper for Best Feature Film in the Children’s Category
- Golden Slipper for Best Feature Film in the Junior Category
- Golden Slipper for Best Feature Film in the Youth Category
- Golden Slipper for Best Short Animation for Children
- ECFA Doc Award for Best European Feature Documentary for Young Audience
- Zlín Dog Award for Best Student Film (with prize money of EUR 1000)
ZLÍN FILM FESTIVAL – International Film Festival for Children and Youth is the oldest festival of its kind in the world; its scope, history and tradition is unparalleled internationally. It offers a comprehensive presentation of contemporary global film production for children and young people, and the program structure has a clear and understandable profile: a festival of films starring children and adolescents. It makes available to child audiences titles that they do not have the opportunity to see elsewhere due to their territorial origin but also due to their non-commercial focus. Each year, it screens nearly 300 films from nearly 50 countries, accompanied by film delegations from all over the world. It is a natural center for international networking regarding the field of film for children and young people, where, in addition to film delegations, professionals from many distributors, sales agents and festival representatives also go. Zlín Film Festival is also a co-organizer and partner of major international activities. Zlín Film Festival is a long-standing active member of the European Children's Film Association (ECFA) and from 2021 also a member of the European Children's Film Festival Network. The festival also traditionally includes an extensive and elaborate system of accompanying activities that support and build on the film program in order to open the festival to the general public. Since 2010, the festival has been attended by over 100,000 children and adults.
The Zlín Film Festival is an active member of the European Children's Film Association. ZFF organizes an extensive supporting, professional and charitable program.
Awards
The Golden Slipper
Golden Slipper for Best Feature Film in the Children’s Category
Golden Slipper for Best Feature Film in the Junior Category
Golden Slipper for Best Feature Film in the Youth Category
Golden Slipper for Best Short
Animation for Children
Golden Apple Award
the City of Zlín Audience Award
for Best Feature Film
Karel Zeman Award
Special Recognition for Best Visual Concept in a Feature Film in the Children’s Category
Zlin Dog Award
Award for Best Student Film
ČT:D Audience Award
Award for the Best Short Animated Film
The rich history of the Zlín festival
ZLÍN FILM FESTIVAL is the largest and oldest festival of its kind in the world. That such a film festival originated in Zlín is no coincidence. The establishment of holding a regular film festival in Zlín was the logical result of efforts by local filmmakers to present their work in a local atmosphere. The first year of the festival took place in 1961, exactly 20 years after another film festival had been carried out in Zlín, which went by the name of Film Harvest (or Zliennale). Although these precursors of later film festivals in Zlín were held in the war years 1940 - 1941, they attracted a considerable amount of attention among audiences and the filmmakers themselves. The Film Harvest was graced with the presence of most of the stars of that period's internationally successful Czech and Slovak films. The main program was held in Zlín's Grand Cinema, which was the largest cinema in Central Europe at that time. The capacity of the building, completed in 1932, was over 2,500 moviegoers!
Zlín is connected with film primarily due to the strong history of its film studios, which were founded in 1936 at the behest of Jan Antonín Baťa as a studio for the creation of advertising films of the Baťa footwear empire. With regards to the development of artistic filmmaking in Zlín, among other significant personalities working here was the director and screenwriter Elmar Klos, who, together with Jan Kadárem, won an Oscar for best foreign language film in 1965 for their film The Shop on Main Street. The film studio in Zlín has been dedicating itself to the production of children's films since the beginning of the 1940s. Over time, the studios in Zlín became the most significant center of film productions for children in former Czechoslovakia. Hundreds of feature, animated and mixed films have been shot here. Many of them have won prestigious awards, or even, as in the case of Karel Zeman, world renown. Zeman was not the only working artist here to be added to the history books of world cinema: Hermína Týrlová, another Oscar-winning film-maker Alexander Hackenschmied, Břetislav Pojar, Josef Pinkava, and others. And the combination of the traditions of film and filmmaking have given Zlín's festival the hallmark of uniqueness. Each year at this location of such unique history there comes a joining of two poles of the film world: spectator and creator.
And the combination of the traditions of film and filmmaking have given Zlín's festival the hallmark of uniqueness. Each year at this location of such unique history there comes a joining of two poles of the film world: spectator and creator.
Journey to the Beginning of Time (1955)
The Treasure of Bird Island (1952)
The Stolen Airship (1966)
The Christmas Dream (1945)
The Christmas Dream (1945)
A Deadly Invention (1958)
A Deadly Invention (1958)