Academia Film Olomouc (AFO) is an international science documentary film festival in Olomouc, Czech Republic, held each April under the patronage of Palacký University. The focus of the festival is science and educational films from the fields of humanities, natural science and social science, as well as current scientific, artistic and technological advances. The festival features TV productions (BBC, Discovery, PBS), podcasts, YouTube channels, and on-demand broadcast, with the aim of science popularization. A variety of film specialists and scientists are invited to discuss current topics with audiences after film screenings, and at special lectures or workshops. The audience mostly consists of visitors with an interest in audio-visual production or science topics, university students, and high school students. The program also focuses on children with a special program block offering film screenings, workshops, and games.
AFO arranges an ongoing accompanying program for the general public. It consists of exhibitions, interventions and events in public spaces, as well as AFO Echoes, which screens films from the festival in cinemas.
History
Origin and early years
Academia Film Olomouc was established in 1966 by the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, Short Film Prague and Palacký University, inspired by a festival of didactic films in Padua, Italy, also held within the university campus. Short Film Prague, the main promoter of the festival from its beginning, had been producing educational films since the 1950s, by film-makers including Jiří Lehovec, Jan Calábek and Bohumil Vošáhlík. These films presented current scientific discoveries and innovations so as to be comprehensible to students and schoolchildren, as well as scientists, and gained an international reputation at the time. In addition, the 1950s and 1960s saw Czechoslovak State Film create a separate department dealing with similar topics.
The university and the film industry collaborated to introduce the general public to up-to-date scientific ideas. The festival in Padua became a model for staff at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, who turned to Palacký University, known for an active programme of cultural events in the 1960s. The university professor Jiří Stýskal sponsored the first screenings of science documentary films in Olomouc with his colleagues Eduard Petrů, Alena Štěrbová and Miroslav Tomšů in 1966. Twelve months later, after its positive reception, the festival was given the name Academia Film.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the festival grew in size and popularity. Czechoslovak Television participated in the festival, contributing educational films and shows to the festival program. Interest in AFO increased during the 1980s and the number of competition films grew. What started as a small university event became a festival that drew the attention of the wider public. AFO reacted to the growth of the video phenomenon in 1986 by including in its program one of the first video projections in Czechoslovakia. The festival expanded its program and gave space to video projection documenting scientific and technical procedures. The video programs got their own program block called Videoforum.
Post-Communism
In the 1990s, AFO became an international festival, but experienced a serious threat from the termination of state funding. While still receiving funding from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, Czech Academy of Sciences, and the Ministry of Culture, the festival was increasingly forced to rely on private sponsors. In 1999 Jan Schneider became the director of AFO, replacing Jindřich Schulz, the former vice-chancellor of Palacký University.