Hundreds of people started coming to Boskovice in Blanensko on Thursday morning for the local Festival for the Jewish Quarter. The program started with screenings in the Panorama cinema, followed by openings and concerts in the afternoon, and the first theater performance in the evening. The event draws attention to one of the best-preserved Jewish monuments in the Czech Republic. It will last until Sunday evening.
The festival in Boskovice is visited by several thousand people every year. In recent years, the interest in buying season tickets in advance has decreased, says Simona Kumpanová on behalf of the organizers. “We perceive it similarly to the organizers of other events, after covid people consider buying tickets more, they prefer to make decisions at the last minute,” he notes.
You can stay in a tent town or in the gym. Compared to previous years, the city has set stricter rules regarding dogs. “There is a new ordinance in Boskovice, so dogs must be on a leash and in some places with a basket. We warn visitors about this so that they don’t have problems with the police,” says Kumpanová.
The festival for the Jewish quarter, which mixes genres and artistic disciplines, is celebrating its 31st year this year. At the last minute, the organizers had to change the Thursday evening program, the eighty-year-old bluesman Jan Spálený apologized for health reasons. “However, we managed to arrange the performance of an absolute classic among Czech folk singers, Vladimír Merta,” adds Jana Černá for the organizers.
Among the main stars of the music program are the bands Dunaj, the American Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, the Slovak Longital, Jaromír 99 and the Letní kapela or the rapper Arleta. Author’s reading will be given by writer Jindřich Mann, historian Petr Blažek and documentarian Adam Drda, collaborating with the Memory of the Nation, will also present themselves. Among other things, a traveling exhibition of photographs depicting the musician Filip Topol and his band Psí vojáci will be on display.
Dozens of theater ensembles will also perform, including Bouquets and Puppets, the Vosto5 troupe famous for its improvisations, or the Bodyvoiceband, which will play the story of Alma Rosé with a virtuoso performance in Sokolovna’s tragic life. Anna Brousková, Antonie Formanová and Vojtěch Bartoš perform in this production.
The festival program also includes nine exhibitions that visitors can view in Sýpka, the Museum of the Boskovicka region, the synagogue, the Jewish Community House or the Panorama cinema. It will present more than two dozen films, this year the program of the cinematographic part focuses on Slovakia. The last screening takes place on Sunday evening in the summer cinema, it will be Thomas Vinterberg’s 2020 film Booze, which won many awards.
The festival has been organized by the Unijazz association since 1993. The original subtitle “for the preservation and restoration of the Jewish quarter” was intended to draw attention to the existence of the unique architectural Jewish quarter, and its dismal state at the time after decades of communist rule. Today, the liquidation of the monument is no longer in danger, so the parade has become “just” a festival “for the Jewish quarter”.
