The Pack Selected for Czech Springboard

April 5, 2018

The Pack by Tomáš Polenský, our very ambitious debut project in development, was selected for Czech Springboard - Pitching & Round Tables which will take place from April 21-23,2018 in the framework of the industry program of Plzeň Finále Film Festival.

Czech Film Springboard is an initiative that Czech Film Center has introduced in cooperation with the festival Finále Plzeň in 2016. The Pack is selected for the so called Pitching & Round Tables, presentation of 8 Czech projects in development or production. Selected projects are pitched to invited international experts from various areas of film industry by their producers and directors and later discussed individually at round tables with selected professionals. The event is closed for public and accessible only for invited experts and presenters of the selected projects. The main goal is to draw attention of competent international experts to carefully selected Czech projects in various stages of development, and to give the projects chance to test their viability.

The Pack, already supported for development by the Czech Film Fund, tells a story of David, a sixteen-year-old hockey goalie freshly diagnosed with diabetes, who joins a new team – one governed by the uncompromising law of the pack. Desperately, David tries to stand his ground against an avalanche of bullying that soon begins to gain speed. The director and co-writer of the film, Tomáš Polenský, says on his feature debut: “According to research, one in almost every five children experiences bullying at some point in their life. This particular form of harassment is, however, almost always mentioned exclusively in the context of educational institutions; yet my own experience indicates that bullying often plays a role in youth sports teams organizations as well. And when it does, its brutality usually greatly exceeds any form of bullying experienced at school. Therefore, to deepen the impression our film, The Pack, will have on its audience, and to make it accessible to today’s young generation, we have set the story in the attractive and dynamic world of ice hockey.”