The 58th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) started with the screening of the movie “The Dead Don’t Hurt” written and directed by Viggo Mortensen.
According to the report of Mansour Jahani, an independent and international cinema journalist, with the release of the movie “The Dead Don’t Hurt”, the second movie of the American director Viggo Mortensen, and with the presence of the famous actor Solly McLeod, the main actor of this movie, some members of the jury The main competition of Crystal Globe including; “Christine Vachon”, an independent and old American producer, “Geoffrey Rush”, an Australian actor, etc. The 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival was opened in the cinema hall of the Thermal Hotel in the city of Karlovy Vary.
Without our partners, the festival would not exist today
This year’s KVIFF began uncommonly with a retrospective, specifically a trip back in time to the year 1994, when the festival seemed to be doomed as the Ministry of Culture considered its cancellation. Fortunately, the festival foundation and its president Jiří Bartoška came on scene. A photography and video montage recalled the thirty years when the festival flourished under Bartoška’s direction. Host Marek Eben interviewed Jiří Bartoská right at centre of the Hotel Thermal Grand Hall. The KVIFF President took this opportunity to express his thanks: “Without our partners, the festival would not exist today. They believed in us when we came up with the idea of saving the festival, and that was a crucial support. Later, all the partners stayed with us during the Covid-19 pandemics.”
Festival President’s Award to American actor and director Viggo Mortensen
After the introduction of selected sections, the first awards were presented. Actor, director and musician Viggo Mortensen received the Festival President’s Award. “It is a great honour for me to receive an award at the Karlovy Vary Festival,” Mortensen begun in Czech. “This is a great celebration of film” he continued. Mortensen also thanked the festival for choosing The Dead Don’t Hurt, the second film he directed, as the opening film. “We are very happy to show you our story,” he said again in Czech. Accompanying him in the film delegation was the young actor Solly McLeod, who promised the audience that in reality he was not such a villain as portrayed in the film.
Jury members of the main competition section of Crystal Globe
Jury members of the Crystal Globe main competition section of the 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival are: Christine Vachon, producer from America, Geoffrey Rush, actor from Australia, Sejon Sjón, a screenwriter and writer from Iceland, Eliška Křenková, an actress from the Czech Republic, and Gábor Reisz, a director, screenwriter and composer from Hungary.
Jury members of the Proxima competition
Also, the jury members of the Proxima competitive section in this prestigious event and the first class of world cinema are: Bianca Balbuena, producer from the Philippines, Wouter Jansen, film distributor from the Netherlands, Adéla Komrzý, a director from the Czech Republic, Mohamed Kordofani, a director from Sudan, and Daniela Michel, an artistic director from Mexico.
My Favourite Cake directed by Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghadam
In the 58th edition of Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, the movie “My Favourite Cake” directed by Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghadam, produced by Iran, France, Sweden and Germany; In its most recent international appearance, it will be screened on June 28 and 29 and July 3 and 6, 2024 in the non-competition Horizons section.
Screening of the movie In the Land of Brothers by Iranian directors
Also, in this prestigious artistic event, the movie In the Land of Brothers directed by Alireza Ghasemi and Raha Amirfazli, produced by Iran, France and the Netherlands, will be screened in Europe for the first time on the 2nd, 4th and 6th. July 2024 in the non-competitive Special Screenings category.
Festival President’s Award to be Prestented to Actor Ivan Trojan
At the closing ceremony of this year’s 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, the President’s Award for Outstanding Contribution to Czech Cinema will be presented to actor Ivan Trojan.
Ivan Trojan is one of the most frequently cast Czech actors in film, television, and theater of the past quarter century.
Franz Kafka and Cinema at the 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
In the unique retrospective “The Wish to Be a Red Indian: Kafka and Cinema,” the festival will present cinematic adaptations of works by influential and perhaps most mysterious figure of 20th-century literature. This year on 3 June it will have been a hundred years that Kafka died of tuberculosis at a sanatorium in Kierling, Austria.
The title of the retrospective comes from one of Kafka’s short stories, at the core of which are the themes of movement and transformation – ideas that define cinema as well. On the program are works by filmmakers such as Orson Welles, Martin Scorsese, Ousmane Sembène, Jan Němec, and Steven Soderbergh.
Kafka is one of those authors whose oeuvre has inspired filmmakers for decades
“Kafka is one of those authors whose oeuvre has inspired filmmakers for decades,” says KVIFF’s artistic director Karel Och, who collaborated on the retrospective with the festival’s foreign consultant Lorenzo Esposito. Continuing, Och adds: “It’s as if he were slyly challenging us to try to capture, as originally and intensely as possible, the elusive nature of his writings, his stories, the realities he has crafted, and the feelings of apprehension he elicits, but also the comic situations he has created.”
Daniel Brühl to receive the Karlovy Vary Film Festival president’s award
Actor, director, producer, and multiple European Film Award-winner Daniel Brühl will be a guest of this year’s 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, where he will also receive the KVIFF President’s Award. On this occasion, Daniel Brühl will present his directorial debut Next Door.
Actor Clive Owen will be a special guest of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival
British actor Clive Owen, recipient of a Golden Globe, a BAFTA award, and a nomination for an Oscar, will be a special guest of this year’s festival. At the closing ceremony of the 58th KVIFF, Owen will be presented the KVIFF President’s Award. On this occasion, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival will show the award-winning Closer, which was released twenty years ago.
The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival to honor Francine Maisler
The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival to honor Francine Maisler, one of the world’s most respected casting directors.
Maisler has worked on more than seventy feature films and is a recipient of fifteen Artios Awards from the Casting Society of America. She has worked with such directors as Denis Villeneuve (Dune: Part Two, Dune, Arrival, Sicario), Terrence Malick (Tree of Life, Knight of Cups), and Alejandro González Iñárritu (The Revenant, Birdman). As part of its homage, the Karlovy Vary festival will hold a special screening of one of the films which Maisler worked on. Maisler will also give a public master class in which she looks back on her career so far.
The Karlovy Vary Film Festival welcomes director Steven Soderbergh
This year’s 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival will play host to Oscar-winning director and producer Steven Soderbergh. The internationally respected filmmaker will be in town to present two of his films, Kafka and Mr. Kneff, which are being shown as part of the festival’s Kafka retrospective, The Wish to Be a Red Indian: Kafka and Cinema.
Karlovy Vary is one of the most prestigious festivals in Central and Eastern Europe
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is one of the most prestigious festivals in Central and Eastern Europe and one of the oldest film festivals in the world. which will hold its 58th season under the chairmanship of Jiří Bartoška, with the executive management of Kryštof Mucha and the artistic management of Karel Och from June 28 to July 6, 2024 in the cinemas of Thermal Hotel Including; Congress Hall, Grand Hall and Cinemas A, B and C as well as Drahomíra Cinemas, Karlovy Vary Theater, Čas, Husovka Theater, Pupp Cinema and Lázně III Cinema It is held in the city of Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic.
Screening of 164 films by directors from around the world
In this prestigious world cinema event, 12 films in the main competition Crystal Globe section and 12 films in the Proxima competition, as well as various non-competition sections, including; 10 films in the Special Screenings, 50 films in the Horizons, 17 films in the Imagina, 17 films in the Future Frames, 12 films in the Out of the Past, 5 films in the Midnight Screenings, 22 Movie in the Kafka and Cinema, 7 movies in the commemoration of a number of well-known figures in world cinema, including; American actress, director and writer Nicole Holofcener, American producer and casting officer Francine Maisler, American actor and director Viggo Mortensen, British actor Clive Owen and Czech actor Ivan Trojan will be screened.
For more details: www.kviff.com
By: Mansour Jahani