“Founded in 1946 and situated in the picturesque Czech spa town,” the “Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) is seen as one of the most prestigious events on the circuit,” writes Orlando Parfitt at the top of his preview of this year’s edition for Screen. KVIFF 2017 opens today and runs through July 8. Crystal Globes for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema will be presented to composer James Newton Howard and to the directing and screenwriting team of Ken Loach and Paul Laverty.
Parfitt notes that KVIFF artistic director Karel Och “says this year’s twelve-strong competition section includes ‘a rather high number of edgy, auteur films with a potential to speak to a larger audience.’ These include Boris Khlebnikov’s Arrhythmia, Vaclav Kadrnka’s Little Crusader, and Giorgi Ovashvili’s Georgian historical drama Khibula. . . . The East of the West strand will open with Ilgar Najaf’s Azerbaijani drama Pomegranate Orchard and includes two films by female directors: Marina Stepanska’s Ukraine-set love story Falling, and Mariam Khatchvani’s Dede. The eleven-strong documentary line-up includes a world premiere of Vit Klusak’s The White World According to Daliborek, described as a ‘portrait of an ordinary Czech neo-Nazi,’ and Gustavo Salmeron’s Lots of Kids, a Monkey and a Castle, which chronicles the economic crisis in Spain.”
“We’re looking for filmmakers with a strong and uncompromising vision, be they genre blenders, like Peter Bebjak, or makers of contemplative medieval road movies, like Václav Kadrnka,” Och tells Martin Kudláč at Cineuropa. “And let’s not forget Andy Fehu and his very first Czech internet thriller, Growroom, being presented as a special event.”
“Probably the film of the year for me is [David Lowery’s] A Ghost Story, which we announced together with the visit of Casey Affleck,” Och tells Radio Praha’s Ian Willoughby. More from Willoughby: “Since 2011 Karlovy Vary has been giving world premieres at the festival’s Grand Hall to newly digitally restored classics of Czechoslovak cinema. This year it is the turn of The Shop on Main Street [image above], a masterpiece by Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos that explores the subject of the Aryanization program in the Slovak State during WWII. It became the country’s first winner of the Academy Award for best foreign language film in 1966.”
Writing for Variety, Will Tizard notes that Uma Thurman “will receive the president’s prize on the festival’s opening night,” and Jeremy Renner, who will screen his wilderness-set thriller Wind River, will receive the same prize at the closing gala July 8.” Also, Denis Côté “will host the Future Frames section, mentoring young European directors.” More from Tizard: “Aside from its leading role in showcasing the freshest work from Eastern and Central Europe, as seen not just in pics in the Official Selection but also in the East of the West section, the fest spotlights unconventional storytelling that has rolled in from India, Azerbaijan and Kosovo.”
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