HELP / FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

If you’re considering attending a festival or event that is registered in the MyCinepass Reservation System, you can create an account yourself via internet. After entering all the required data, you will gain access to your own private webpage, where you can manage all your activities at the given event. If the organizers permit, you can also purchase a cinepass or ticket for a particular screening online. Once you’ve registered, you can use your account for any festival or event in the MyCinepass system. We urge you to enter factual, accurate information when registering, as when you collect your purchased products, you may be asked to provide proof of identity.

If you’ve already purchased a cinepass, don’t register – that has been taken care of by the staff of the festival or event. When the festival/event staff entered you into the system, an email was sent to you with instructions for your first login. If it seems you haven’t received such an email, check your spam folder. If it isn’t there, your account’s email address may have been entered incorrectly. If you suspect this may be the case, please contact us at support@cinepass.sk or return to the sales point where you made your purchase and ask to verify your account information.

Whether you’ve created your account yourself via “Online registration” or “Activation after registration at a sales point”, your MyCinepass account is valid indefinitely (unless otherwise specified by the festival) and can also be used at later editions of the festival. Since your account is functional and valid throughout the MyCinepass system, meaning you can use it for any event registered in the system, we recommend safeguarding your login information.

If your information has changed, was entered incorrectly, or the registration point staff made an error, you can change certain information in your profile after logging into the reservation system. If you’d like to change the name or email address associated with your account, please contact us at support@cinepass.sk and describe the problem in as much detail as you can. We will see to your request as soon as we can.

You can request your username or password with the “Forgotten password” function in the “Login” section. They will be sent to the email address you specified during registration. If you’re able to log in and wish to change your password, this can be done in the “Profile” section.

A cinepass usually takes the form of a plastic card with an original printed design issued by the festival to its visitors. It is a reusable substitute for a ticket, acting as an all-festival pass that grants access to ordinary screenings for a fixed period, depending on the amount paid.

In certain cases, a cinepass may also come in a different form, such as a wristband. Each cinepass bears a unique identification number and a barcode or QR code.

Cinepasses can be reactivated and renewed repeatedly.

However, due to updates to the reservation system, we can no longer accept cinepasses issued before 2016. Cinepasses issued in 2016 or later can be repeatedly renewed through purchases at later film festivals.

• Each visitor can only have a single cinepass active at any given time. One account cannot be associated with more than one activated (valid) cinepass card.
• Cinepasses are only valid in their entirety; the barcode alone cannot be used for admission to a screening venue or to identify oneself.
• A cinepass from a previous festival can only be activated by the person it was originally issued to, and only if they have not already activated a new cinepass.
• Cinepasses are normally issued under a specific person’s name. These are non-transferable and can be activated at future festival editions as well, unless the organizers specify otherwise.

If you purchase your cinepass online, you have two activation options:

• activate an expired card (cinepass) from a previous festival (only possible with cards issued in 2016 or later) 
• choose the option “New card”

If you choose to activate an expired card, the selected cinepass will be activated on it. After that, you’re all set to make reservations and attend screenings with your cinepass in hand.

But if you don’t have a card yet and thus choose “New card”, you’ll receive a “virtual card” upon payment – a temporary cinepass that you can use to make reservations (in accordance with the rules governing them) as soon as they are available in the system.

However, a virtual card will not grant you entry to a screening. For that, find a registration point when you first visit the festival (generally located near each screening venue) and ask them to issue you your physical cinepass card. This is free of charge. This cinepass will contain all your reservations, and you can proceed to enjoy the festival to its fullest.

If you make a reservation for a screening, you are guaranteed a seat. However, you must enter the venue at least five minutes before the start of the screening. If not, your seat will be offered to other cinepass or accreditation holders without reservations. At this point you will no longer be guaranteed entry into the screening venue, as it may be full. Reservations are not tied to a specific seat in the screening venue –seating is on a general admission basis, so you can sit wherever you like, with the exception of seats reserved for special guests.

Each cinepass or accreditation pass has a limit on the number of active reservations. This is not a limit on the total number of screenings you can see; the limit only applies to the number of reservations you can have active/reserved on your cinepass at a time. When a screening you’ve reserved begins, whether you’ve attended it or not, it frees up one slot on your cinepass for another reservation. How you choose to use your free reservation slots is entirely up to you.

To make reservations, first you need an active account and a valid cinepass. Reservations can also be made on a virtual card. When you collect your cinepass at a registration point, the reservations from your virtual card will be automatically transferred to your new cinepass.

• Click on “Cinepass reservations”.
• Log in with your username and password.
• A list of films will appear.
• On the calendar at the top of the screen (note: this may not appear for festivals with a smaller number of screenings), you can choose a specific date, or select all of the festival days using the calendar icon to the left of the date list.
• There are various search filters to aid your browsing.
• The system displays films along with their reservation availability.
• Make a reservation on your cinepass by clicking on the green “Reserve” button.
• If there is no such button next to a film, reservations are no longer available for that screening.
• Reservations can be cancelled at any time.
• When you’re finished, log off to prevent others from misusing your account.

For valid cinepass holders, reservations are not required, but are strongly recommended. During entry to screening venues, reservation holders will be given priority. If a screening is completely booked up, it is unlikely that those without reservations will be granted entry. However, five minutes before the start of a screening, unused reservations will expire, at which point the venue staff will admit visitors without reservations until the venue has reached full capacity.

• You can make reservations upon request at registration points using your cinepass.
• With our MyCinepass reservation system, you can make reservations online on your computer or mobile device, or using the terminals located near the screening venues.

The total number of reservations you make with your cinepass or accreditation pass is only limited by the extent to which you take advantage of it. Reservations can be made at any time (up to one hour before the screening) for any public screening at this year’s festival during your cinepass’s validity period. The one restriction is that you can only have up to a certain number of active reservations on your cinepass at one time, depending on the type of cinepass you have. If you don’t use your reservation, it will be claimed by the festival five minutes before show time (unless otherwise specified by the organizers). Of course, a reservation slot on your cinepass will be freed up if whether you attend the screening or not, allowing you to make another reservation.

The reservation system will not make reservations or sell tickets if there is less than one hour remaining before the start of the screening. Each screening venue has a specific number of reservable seats; when this number is reached, reservations can no longer be made. These free seats are set aside for single-entry ticket holders or valid cinepass holders without reservations. If, for example, the limit is 30 seats and only 25 seats are currently free, but there is more than one hour remaining before the start of the screening, there is a chance that some visitors will cancel their reservations. In such a case, if the number of free seats increases to 31 or above, the system will once again allow reservations for the given screening.

Customarily, five minutes before the start of a screening, cinepass holders without reservations will be admitted (before then, entry is restricted to those with reservations or tickets for the specific screening). Admittance is restricted to the venue’s seating capacity (exceeding the venue’s capacity is not permitted). The number of free unreserved seats for a screening can be viewed in the online reservation system. Keep in mind that this number may increase – unused reservations expire five minutes before the screening, possibly making more seats available. Cinepasses cannot be used (to make reservations or allow entry without a reservation) for certain screenings designated by the festival.

Unfortunately not, as each cinepass is associated with a particular email address, and it cannot be transferred. In such a case, a change can be requested at a registration point, where a new card will be issued to your account after you’ve paid a lost card fee.

To prevent your cinepass from being misused, please report the loss to any festival registration point. If you would like a new replacement cinepass, the festival staff will issue you one for the fee in the price list.

At festival box offices or in the reservation system, you can purchase single-entry tickets for a specific film screening. These tickets also function as reservations, expiring five minutes before the start of the screening. A ticket can only be used for one particular screening. If you don’t use your ticket for this screening, the ticket will no longer be valid and cannot be replaced.

As lost tickets cannot be replaced, we urge you to safeguard them until their use.

Security is our first priority. We’ve taken every precaution to ensure that transactions are always carried out securely.

• All communication between the reservation system website and your browser is encrypted. As evidence of this, notice that the site’s URL begins with https:// and is accompanied by a green lock icon further to the left.  
• All transactions are made via the secure VÚB Bank payment gateway.
• We don’t use any other intermediary payment gateways.
• We have no way to access, process or save the card information you enter.

• Tickets and cinepasses are sold at festival registration points and box offices, which are clearly marked and generally located near festival screening venues.
• Certain types of tickets and cinepasses can also be purchased online via the MyCinepass reservation system, using a MasterCard, Maestro, Visa, Visa Electron or Diners Club International.
• Cinepasses can also be purchased from licensed third-party vendors via internet. Simply exchange your proof-of-purchase voucher for a festival cinepass at a registration point.
• Selected tickets can also be purchased from licensed third-party vendors. These tickets do not have to be exchanged – they can be used directly upon entry to the given screening.

When you purchase any product using the MyCinepass reservation system, you will receive an automatically generated purchase confirmation. It will be automatically saved in the “My purchases” section and sent to your email address as well.

The MyCinepass reservation system allows you to quickly and easily purchase cinepasses online using a MasterCard, Maestro, Visa, Visa Electron or Diners Club International card. Each visitor can only purchase a single cinepass on their account. Upon payment, you will immediately receive a “virtual card” – a temporary cinepass that you can use to make reservations (in accordance with the rules governing them) as soon as they are available in the system. However, a virtual card will not grant you entry to a screening. For that, find a registration point when you first visit the festival (generally located near each screening venue), and ask them to issue you your own original cinepass (at no extra charge). This cinepass will contain all your reservations, and you can proceed to enjoy the festival to its fullest.

If the event organizer permits, the MyCinepass reservation system’s cinepass sales function can offer users the option of activating their cinepass card from previous years. This is one of the ways we do our part for the environment.

If activation of older cinepasses is permitted, the user has an older cinepass card registered on their account, and the card in question is compatible with the product being activated, the system will offer the user two options: purchase a new card or activate the older one. We recommend activating an older card only after confirming that a card with the given number is still physically in your possession.

After activating an older card, you don’t have to visit a festival box office; simply make your reservations using your card and display it when entering a venue.

In most cases, a single card design is used for multiple types of cinepass. However, the organizer may have instead opted for a distinctive design for a particular type. For this reason, a card that was used for one type of cinepass may not necessarily be compatible with a different type of cinepass.

For example, if your card has a universal design, you may not be able to use it to activate a cinepass for which the organizer has chosen a special card design.

Likewise, if you hold a card with a special design (e.g. an insignia such as “SENIOR”, “CLUB” or “INDUSTRY”), it will only be compatible with that particular type of cinepass.

The MyCinepass reservation system allows you to quickly and easily purchase tickets for individual screenings online using a MasterCard, Maestro, Visa, Visa Electron or Diners Club International card. Tickets are available for purchase to registered as well as non-registered visitors. When your tickets are paid for, they will immediately be sent to your email address in the form of a PDF file. Registered visitors can also find their tickets through the reservation system in the “My purchases” section. Print out your tickets and display them when entering the screening venue. Alternatively, you can bring them up on the display of your mobile device, allowing our staff to scan them upon entry. Purchased tickets expire five minutes before the start of the screening. After that time, the festival can no longer guarantee entry into the screening venue. It is the ticket holder’s responsibility to safeguard their tickets and prevent them from being copied or misused. Each ticket bears a unique code that is deactivated after a single use. If a ticket is misused, the festival will not provide a replacement.

All of the data you enter into the reservation system and the bank website is encrypted and safeguarded.

• After confirming your purchase, you must enter your basic billing information.
• On the next page, verify the order information and click “Make payment through payment gateway”.
• You will be redirected to the VÚB Banka payment gateway.
• Enter all the required information.
• After successful completion of the transaction, the bank site will redirect you back to the reservation system.
• There you will see a page informing you that your purchased products have been activated.

If your payment is successful, but you aren’t automatically redirected to the reservation system and you don’t see any active products in your account (a “virtual card” cinepass or new ticket purchases in “My purchases”), the payment system has probably failed to pair properly. If this happens, please contact support at support@cinepass.sk, including basic information about you and the payment. We will activate your tickets or cinepass immediately upon identification of your payment.

The simplest solution is to first create your own account in the reservation system, then simply visit any festival registration point (see the official festival website), ask to purchase a cinepass and provide our staff with the information they need to find you in the system and issue you a new cinepass.

If you don’t create your own account, the festival staff will create one for you. You will receive an email confirmation of your account, along with the information and instructions necessary for your first login.

After opening an order and proceeding with the payment process, you will be redirected to the bank payment gateway. After successfully completing the transaction, you should be redirected back to the reservation system, which should immediately provide you with the purchased product. If this does not occur and the order continues to show the status “pending”, contact technical support for the payment to be processed manually. When ordering, only click the “Cancel” button if you haven’t yet completed your payment and you wish to cancel the order.

If the festival/event is offering discounted cinepasses (or products) for groups like students, seniors, disabled people etc., these products are sold under the conditions set by its organizers.

If the given festival does offer such products, they are usually subject to the following conditions:

• Student discounts are available exclusively to students with a valid ISIC, ITIC or EURO26 card. Students can activate their discounts right from their profile for the given festival or before purchasing the selected product. Other types of verification are not available online. If the organizers permit, student discounts can also be requested via email, but only under the conditions set by the festival/event.
• If senior or disability discounts are offered online, they are only available to those with proof of their status (according to the conditions set by the organizer). When entering a screening venue with this type of cinepass, please present your proof of status to the event staff without waiting to be prompted. If a holder of such a cinepass cannot prove their eligibility for the given discount, the event staff reserve the right to refuse them entry to the screening. In most cases, however, such products are sold only at the cash registers.
• In the booking system, the purchase of discounted one-time tickets is not possible.

• To be eligible for a discount, the surname on your ISIC, ITIC or EURO26 card must match the surname (and middle name, if applicable) you entered when registering in the MyCinepass reservation system. Otherwise the discount cannot be activated automatically.
• ISIC, ITIC and EURO26 identifiers consist of letters and numbers, some of which may be separated by a space. Omit these spaces when you enter the code in the verification field. If your card identifier still isn’t accepted, try omitting the last letter.
• If you fulfil all the conditions and your discount still isn’t accepted, check your card’s validity, then contact us at support@cinepass.sk.  

Seating is on a general admission basis, so you can sit wherever you like, with the exception of seats reserved for special guests. If needed, the venue staff may ask you to vacate your seat, but only if absolutely necessary.

If a screening is cancelled, ticket holders should contact the venue box office on the same day, where they will be informed of their options.

It is usually possible to return the ticket or exchange it for a different screening with the same price.

When a screening is cancelled, reservations associated with it are also cancelled immediately, freeing up a slot for another reservation. Cinepass holders are not eligible for any financial compensation if a reserved screening is cancelled.

If a screening of one film is replaced with another, tickets purchased for the first film are still valid for the new one and will be accepted at entry to the screening. If you hold such a ticket and aren’t interested in the substitute film, visit the venue box office, and they will inform you of your options.

Reservations on cinepasses will also continue to be valid for the replacement film. If you aren’t interested in the substitute film, you can cancel the reservation on your cinepass at any time.

The system administrators, in agreement with the event organizers, reserve the right to take the system or any of its components offline indefinitely without advance notice, in which case visitors can make reservations at registration points.

• The system is primarily designed for non-mobile browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Safari. We do not recommend using Internet Explorer, and versions 10 and under are not supported at all.
• The system is quite resource-intensive and thus may not function properly on certain mobile devices, especially older ones. If you access the system via mobile phone or tablet, we recommend using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. On other browsers, certain functions may not work properly.
• Problems or errors in the reservation system can be reported to support@cinepass.sk.
• Accredited VIP festival guests – accreditation credential with photograph

Accreditation is a special kind of cinepass for festival guests, jury members, journalists, film professionals and festival staff. Accreditation cannot be purchased normally and is provided on the basis of individual rules.

Accreditation holders don’t have to create an account in the MyCinepass reservation system, since festival staff automatically register them in the database. Accredited accounts are distinct from those of regular cinepass-holding visitors. Accounts created by ordinary visitors cannot be accredited.

No, accredited guests don’t have access to the purchase of tickets and cinepasses. If you’d like to buy a ticket or other product outside of your accreditation benefits, you must create a new account as a standard user, which will allow you to make purchases.

The password for your VIP accreditation account will be provided to you by our guest services staff. If you’d like to change your password, you can ask them in person. You should have received an email from us explaining the password change options. You can also change your password yourself with the MyCinepass system: in the section “Accredited guests”, click on “Forgotten password” and enter the requested information. You’ll receive an email with instructions on setting a new password. If you’re confused, please contact guest services; they will address any problems you might have.

Accreditation is functionally equivalent to a visitor cinepass. You can use it to make reservations and attend various festival screenings as allowed by the particular type of accreditation. Accreditation also grants entry to various accompanying events designated for VIP festival guests. Guest services staff will provide you with more information.