The Karlovy Vary Film Festival, the biggest film festival in Central Europe, returns in a big way

In a region of the world -Central and Eastern Europe- where not much has been noticed lately, the news that the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival will be launching with all its strength this year (56th KVIFF from July 1st to July 9th) it’s real. The reason for the party.

“We had a physical event last year, but it was still a little under the COVID cloud,” said Karel Ochi, artistic director at KVIFF. “This time everyone is really in the mood, you can feel the atmosphere that makes Karlovy Vary special. will be close [the last pre-pandemic festival] 2019 as much as possible.”

Karlovy Vary occupies a unique position on the festival calendar. After the madness of Cannes and the height of the awards season, which begins in Venice and Toronto, the Czech festival offers an oasis of calm. Located in West Bohemia, a wonderful postcard-perfect spa town that has been a holiday destination since at least the 19th century; Last year, UNESCO declared Karlovy Vary a World Heritage Site and called it “one of the greatest spa towns in Europe”. The festival is so popular with locals who head south of the capital Prague to spend the first week of their summer vacation there, with movies on the big screen as industry celebrities take to the red carpet. Its new releases for the region and as a place to combine a little work and a lot of fun.

This year’s celebrities include Oscar winners Benicio Del Toro and Jeffrey Rush, who will be honored at the 2022 event. Movement s Ჩ Usual suspects Star Del Toro will receive the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Presidential Award, which will be awarded to directors who “have made a significant contribution to the development of cinema and cinema”. Where career indicators include The king’s speech (2010), weeks (2000) and Shine (1996), will receive the KVIFF Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema, in honor of the Festival’s Lifetime Achievement.

Over the years, Karlovy Vary has had no trouble attracting daring celebrity guests, with Patricia Clarkson, Johnny Depp, Thomas McKenzie, Ethan Hawke and Robert Pattinson among the latest stars to walk the KVIFF red carpet in front of the Hotel. Thermal. The hotel and spa was built specifically in 1977 to host the country’s premier film festival.

“The festival is really loved by celebrities, in part because we respect them not only as actors but also as filmmakers,” said festival executive director Christoph Mucha. “So when we honor John Malkovich or Antonio Banderas, we also mention them as directors. Last year, we introduced not only actor Johnny Depp, but producer Johnny Depp as well. [of Julien Temple’s Shane MacGowan music doc Crock of Gold].”

For celebrities used to the tense press schedule of Berlin, Cannes or Venice, Karlovy Vary is a relief.

“There’s not a lot of pressure for people to spend all day at press conferences, Q&A or other events,” Mucha said. “Celebrities can freely participate in the festival or not as they wish. It’s always a combination of work and vacation.”

The official composition of Karlovy Vary Festival 2022 is a combination of fun and seriousness. This year’s lineup includes more than 160 feature and short films, including 34 world premieres.

Along with favorite skins, including Ruben Ostlund’s Golden Palm Branch Holder the pain triangle and Jury Prize winners eight mountains By Felix van Grenningen and Charlotte Vandermersch and it’s theJerzy Skolimovsky Donkey Road film, KVIFF programmers selected the best of new Eastern European cinema, including names in competition. the limits of lovePolish film by Polish director Tomasz Winski, a new feature film by Czech director Beata Parkanova. slovo (He said) and Lithuanian science fiction Festive Directed by Cristina Bujite and Bruno Samper, whose world premiere will take place in Karlovy Vary.

The Festival’s Imagina section will feature more complex and experimental works, including Yuri Ankara’s documentary fiction. atlantisVerena Paraveli and Lucien Casting-Taylor is an odyssey centered on the human body Of humani corporis manufactures. While KVIFF’s popular midnight shows will feature the latest from cult directors Quentin Dupier (smoking causes cough), Alex Garland (Menand David Cronenberg (crimes of the future).

“We are one of the oldest film festivals in the world [the festival’s first edition, in 1946, was just one month after Cannes’ debut]”But the festival was reborn in the 1990s. I like to think that we are still young at heart,” said Ochi. “The main programming team is in their 30s and most of the festival’s audience are students.

In fact, despite Karlovy Vary’s luxurious location, KVIFF develops an atmosphere closer to a nine-day music festival than a high-end smoky industry event.

“This is a public festival and it’s the first week of July, which is the first week of summer break,” Mucha said. “So the students come by force and spend the first week in Karlovy Vary watching movies.”

Fans of this enduring film live in rooms and tents: Karlovy Vary’s legendary “city of tents” has a “Woodstock feel” outside of the festival, notes Okh, and KVIFF fits their tight budget, according to Mucha. “Keep prices as low as possible”… You can see three movies a day for less than $2 [a ticket].”

Mucha says this focus on equality also sets it apart from more industry-oriented events in Karlovy Vary, such as Cannes or Sundance.

“When you show your films at these festivals, you know that most people in theaters are professionals,” he said. “Most of Karlovy Vary, maybe 80%, are regular fans. For many filmmakers, this is the first showing of their film in front of a regular audience, in front of an audience that doesn’t value their film from the point of view of critics, sales or the film’s owners, but the film itself. to the story”.

The KVIFF first established its focus on the silent audience in the mid-1990s. After 40 years of working under political pressure in socialist Czechoslovakia, pressure that included an annual rotation at the Moscow International Film Festival, the KVIFF regained its independence in 1994. , when renowned Czech acting legend Jiri Bartoszka.sekal must die, all my favorite people, tiger theory) And prominent film journalist Eva Zaoralova attended the event. They received much-needed help from Oscar-winning Czech director Milo ფორმ Formen (Someone flies over the cuckoo’s nidus, Amadeo, People against Larry Flint), whose mission was to popularize KVIFF in Hollywood.

“He would pick up the phone and call his friends, like Michael Douglas, who he knew because Douglas was running Someone flies over the cuckoo’s nidus– Okh points out, – he knew Douglas was spending his summer vacation in Europe, so he asked if he would visit the festival. he did the same [The People Vs. Larry Flint actors] Woody Harrelson and Edward Norton. “Everyone respected him a lot and trusted them to come.”

Foreman, who died in 2018, didn’t get a promotional blow if he helped the festival. In the mid-1990s, the director cycled nearly 130 kilometers from Prague to Karlovy Vary, carrying bicycle tools and underwear straps, a perfect image of the KVIFF Ethic of Equality.

“Milo ფორმ Formen was very important to Karlovy Vary, as well as a symbol of the Czech filmmaker and Czech artist, who became internationally famous but still retained his Czech sensibility and sense of humor,” said Och. His soul will never leave Karlovy Vary.

While KVIFF continues to celebrate, as Ochi puts it, “everything goes for freedom,” which Foreman embodied, the 2022 festival has gotten even more corporate. The event industry division, KVIFF Eastern Promises Industry Days, which takes place from July 3 to July 6 in parallel with the festival, has become the main red and discussion center for the production and distribution of films in the region.

The festival is directly involved in the latter, after its distribution front, KVIFF Distribution, acquired a majority stake in Aerofilms, the leading art distributor in the Czech Republic. Aerofilms’ film catalog, which includes over 500 titles, is powered by KVIFF TV, the festival’s VOD streaming platform, powered by Jakub Havrlant’s investment in Rockaway Capital, which seeks to become an online player for the entire region.

“The ambition is, after three years or so, we can buy films ourselves, at the European Film Market in Berlin or Cannes, say we can manage Karlovy Vary and get physical and online distribution, not just in the Czech Republic. Republic, but in Eastern Europe. [central and eastern European] The region,” Och said.

Karlovy Vary is currently more directly supporting those who suffered the most in the EEC: Ukrainian filmmakers were interrupted or displaced by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of this year.

As a show of support, KVIFF will host the Odessa International Film Festival’s work-in-progress program on July 5, separating eight feature film projects from future Ukrainian filmmakers whose production has been suspended due to the war. Everyone is looking for potential producers, financing and distribution partners to transfer their films.

While the Odessa WIP program is only a small part of KVIFF 2022, Okhi believes it is essential to the festival’s primary objective of supporting and sustaining the region’s film industry, now and in the future.

“If I look back 30 years ago, when the Czechoslovak film industry emerged after the fall of the communist regime, it was a big challenge, but we still had the infrastructure, the building, the studios,” he said. . “What we are talking about in Ukraine is the disappearance of entire cities. Film directors not only don’t have the space to be creative, they also don’t have a place to sleep, to live… Although many filmmakers in Ukraine now turn off their cameras and have gone to the front lines to fight the filmmakers and hopefully , they will be able to return to a normal and creative life as soon as possible.