6th Annual MOFFOM festival cancelled

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

On behalf of the Music on Film - Film on Music International Film Festival and Music on Film o.s, we regret to inform you that MOFFOM will not continue in the year 2009. It has been a tough decision to make and we have explored many options to save the festival. However, we have concluded that there is no realistic way to do it.

This is a sad moment for us, and we suppose it will be received with regret by both the Czech and international film community and the general public. MOFFOM pioneered the concept of a festival dedicated to music films, inspired many others in their pursuit of promoting good quality filmmaking focusing on music, and over the years became a highly respected film industry event. Every October, we did our best to add something new and original to Prague's already crowded cultural calendar, and were happy to witness a consistent growth in audience and reputation for quality.

For all those five years, we have been trying to find a general partner for the festival that would secure its financial health.Despite the fact that MOFFOM was becoming increasingly popular, we have become used to hearing that it does not fit the sponsors'marketing and strategic priorities. Judging from these responses, we can only conclude two things - either we, the filmmakers, our partner festivals and our great audience were wrong in believing that MOFFOM has its place and meaning in Prague, or the sponsors we had been approaching lacked judgement. Only time will tell how much MOFFOM will be missed, but it is certain that we loved giving it to you every year.

If there is a bright side to the situation, it is that MOFFOM has made an impact beyond its annual presence in Prague. In 2007, we developed a partnership of film festivals sharing the music theme. The Association of Music Film Festivals (www.amusiff.org) now unites eleven festivals of music films in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Furthermore, MOFFOM's www.moffom.org will remain operational and additional content can be found at www.musicfilmweb.com and www.moffom-db.com . A four-minute documentary clip of the 2008 festival's edition, prepared by the company Mouse Over, is to revisit the good times. We give our sincere thanks to all the partners and supporters of the festival, and to all those on the festival staff over the past five years who made the festival a delight.

Yours,

John Caulkins, Tomáš Prášek
Festival Directors
Music on Film - Film on Music (MOFFOM)