Fotojatka festival was born in the town of České Budějovice (Budweis) and in its first year, it mainly presented local photographers’ work. Since 2008, however, it started to focus on creative and documentary photography from the Czech Republic as well as from the rest of the world and spread its wings to Brno and Praha, with projections of „echoes of Fotojatka“ taking place in many other towns. Despite its weird name („Fotojatka“ meaning something like „Photographic Slaughterhouse“) the festival has never projected photography depicting explicit violence, wildly uncomprehensible or specifically „underground“ series – the main criteria in choosing photographic series was to select works that will address a wide audience without unnecessary descriptions, but, at the same time, that are notably different and stand out among the works of most photographers.

The main difference between Fotojatka and other festivals is in the way photography is presented: instead of exhibiting prints, the series are projected onto film screen, with carefully selected musical or soundscape accompaniment, which emphasizes the emotional impact of the photos. Each slideshow is preceded by a spoken introduction, but the projection itself is uncommented.