Great Movies
The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) will have its 56th installment from Friday, July 1st, through Saturday, July 9th. This year, the festival will launch a new year-round program, KVIFF Talents, the objective of which is to identify talented filmmakers and to support the creation of creative audiovisual projects with international ambitions possessing a high level of originality. As part of the program, selected filmmakers will receive financing for development, mentoring from experts, and the chance to present their projects to potential producers, partners, and investors at the festival in Karlovy Vary. The project’s pilot phase is open to submissions from the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In the future, the project will be expanded to include all of Central and Eastern Europe.
“Promoting new talent has always been a central part of the festival’s activities. With KVIFF Talents, we are taking these activities to a new level. The program will be another important piece of the puzzle promoting greater originality, creative boldness, and international ambitions by filmmakers from our region,” says KVIFF’s executive director Kryštof Mucha. You can find more information about the program here.
The Karlovy Vary festival will support Ukrainian filmmakers and the country’s film industry through a unique collaborative project with the Odesa International Film Festival (OIFF). The unprecedented military assault on Ukraine has caused dramatic disruptions to the country’s cultural life. The Karlovy Vary festival expresses its full support for Ukrainian filmmakers and festival organizers, and will thus host the Works-in-Progress program of the 13th Odesa International Film Festival, which cannot be held there because of the war. In Karlovy Vary, the program will be known as OIFF WIP Selection. Acceptance of applications for the OIFF WIP Selection will be announced in the coming weeks.
“Broad solidarity with war-afflicted Ukraine must also include support for the country’s cultural life, which at this moment has come almost to a halt. As a film festival, we have tried to find ways of supporting Ukrainian cinema, and we are glad that we have managed to work with the Odesa film festival to find a meaningful form of cooperation,” says Hugo Rosák, head of KVIFF’s Industry Department.
“The war has a direct impact on the film industry, so we will hold the Odesa International Film Festival’s industry screenings as part of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. We are honored to have this opportunity to show Ukrainian cinema, talent and culture to the world,” Anna Machuh, General Director of OIFF said.
The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival will continue its long-running tradition of premiering digitally restored versions of classic Czech films by showing another important example of the Czechoslovak New Wave, director Jaromil Jireš’s 1968 adaptation of Milan Kundera’s novel, "The Joke." The KVIFF President’s Award for outstanding figures in Czech cinema will go to actor, playwright, screenwriter, and director Boleslav Polívka. The visuals for the 56th KVIFF were designed by Jonatan Kuna and Zuzana Lednická of Studio Najbrt, whose uninterrupted collaboration with KVIFF goes all the way back to 1995.
For more information, visit the official site of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
