INTERNATIONAL FESTIVALS COMMISSION

Jakub Hora is the director of the Alfa Theatre Plzeň, a major Czech puppetry scene, and the director of the International Puppet Theatre Festival Skupova Plzeň, the largest puppetry festival and the oldest professional theatre festival in the Czech Republic www.skupovaplzen.cz. He is a member of the Czech UNIMA centre and represents the city of Plzeň in the association of puppet theatre friendly cities AVIAMA, where he is a member of the board of directors and treasurer. Since 2023 he is an executive member of the board of directors and co-dramaturge of the Shimokitazawa International Puppet Theatre Festival in Tokyo – www.sipf.jp. Jakub Hora graduated from the Department of Theatre Production at DAMU, Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. Since 1998 he has worked for nearly ten years as a producer at the Naive Theatre Liberec, a major European puppet theatre. After 2008, he joined Anifest, the largest Czech animated film festival, as head of production and then director. He worked there until 2012, while producing three short films (one of which, Chronicle of Oldrich S., was awarded at international festivals). In 2013, he went freelance and published a Czech translation of Russian animation legend Yuri Norstein’s book Snow on Grass. In 2013, he joined the prominent Prague alternative theatre Alfred ve dvoře, where he collaborated on the first edition of the Bazaar contemporary theatre festival. In the same year he became the chairman of the Animania association in Pilsen. This association of artists, lecturers, filmmakers, printmakers and teachers organises a major animation festival in Pilsen and focuses on the development of audiovisual education for children. Jakub Hora has been the chairman of Animania until now. In 2014 he joined the team of Pilsen European Capital of Culture 2015. As part of this project, he produced one of the flagship projects – an extensive exhibition of the master of Czech puppet animation and illustration Jiří Trnka. This exhibition was awarded for best work of czech cinematography 2015 and in larger scale was remade (in Jakub Hora production) in 2019 in Kutna Hora, Czech. In 2015, he became the director of the Alfa Theatre and, as part of the European Capital of Culture project, organised the first and largest ever edition of the international festival Skupova Plzeň International. Since 2015, he has been working mainly at the Alfa Theatre, and has produced 4 more editions of the Skupova Plzeň festival. Alfa Theatre produces 4 new productions a year. He is very active internationally and has prepared international tour performances for Divadlo Alfa (and other Czech puppet theatres) in Germany, Belgium, Italy, United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Denmark, Egypt and other countries. He has also prepared several tours in Japan together with PUK Theatre. After his happy marriage to the Japanese theatre theorist Yoko Yamaguchi, together they founded in 2023 the SIPF International Festival in Tokyo and are currently working on the Czech-Japanese co-production (PUK and ALFA) CASLAVSKA TOKYO 1964. In 2024, in addition to the first edition of SIPF, they also organized the 35th edition of the Skupova Plzeň festival. In addition to his professional activities, he occasionally conducts seminars on Czech puppet theatre in the Czech Republic and abroad, acts in some productions of the Alfa Theatre as a musician and plays in two musical groups