Karlovy Vary honours for Rush and Del Toro

Czech festival gears up for premieres and surprises

by Richard Mowe

Geoffrey Rush and Benicio Del Toro will receive honours in Karlovy Vary
Geoffrey Rush and Benicio Del Toro will receive honours in Karlovy Vary Photo: KVIFF

Oscar-winning actors Geoffrey Rush and Benicio Del Toro will be honoured in the Czech Republic at the forthcoming edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (July 1-July 9) in programme plans announced today in Prague.

Both the actors will receive awards at the festival's closing ceremony in the Bohemian spa town. As part of the tribute to Rush, who will receive the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema, the Festival will screen The King's Speech, Quills and Shine. Titles chosen for Del Toro, who will next be seen starring in the crime thriller Reptile, starring opposite Justin Timberlake, for Netflix, are Traffic and The Usual Suspects. He will receive the KVIFF President’s Award.

Jake Paltrow’s June Zero receives a special screening at Karlovy Vary
Jake Paltrow’s June Zero receives a special screening at Karlovy Vary Photo: KVIFF
“We are honoured and delighted that two extraordinary actors we have been deeply admiring for many years accepted our invitation to come to Karlovy Vary,” said KVIFF's president Jiří Bartoška who will oversee the Festival without his trusted colleague of several decades Eva Zaoralová, who died earlier this year. She will remembered with a special screening of Federico Fellini’s The Road.

After two years impacted by the pandemic more than 160 feature-length including Cannes Palme d’Or Winner Triangle Of Sadness by Ruben Östlund and Critics’ Week entry Aftersun by Charlotte Wells. Films will be spread across 13 sections in this 56th edition of the festival, with 34 films being presented as world premieres.

More than 50 titles have been selected for the Horizons section, chosen by four programmers led by the artistic director Karel Och. Lynch/Oz, the new documentary essay by Alexandre O. Philippe, will be screened as a European premiere. The film explores the influence of The Wizard Of Oz on the work of one of the most original filmmakers in the world – David Lynch.

The cult films The Wizard of Oz and Wild At Heart , which constitute the axis of the Lynch/Oz research, will be screened as well – providing "bonus material" for audiences. The programme will be introduced by Philippe himself.

The Imagina section traditionally serves as a haven for the more demanding and experimental part of the program. Twenty idiosyncratic films in the Imagina’s line-up are defined by what the Festival describes as “their out-of-the-box narratives as well as resistance towards the prevailing trends in the world cinematography.” This year, the section will host three world premieres: Tiger, Tiger; Cadence – A Tale of Paper and Cloth and Partial Visions of Hell (Part IV).

The 12 titles in the Crystal Globe Competition are all world premieres, apart from the international premieres of Anna Kazejak’s Fucking Bornholm; Sophie Linnenbaum’s The Ordinaries; and Jonás Trueba’s You Have To Come And See It.

Jake Paltrow’s June Zero, which was shot in Ukraine, will receive its world premiere as a special screening. The US-Israel co-production explores the infamous trial of Eichmann, the architect of the mass extermination of Jews during the Second World War.

“The events unfolding in Ukraine these days are a reminder that, indeed, ‘The past isn’t dead, it isn’t even past,’ and that it’s worth continually trying to find new ways to access and listen to history. June Zero’ is an attempt at this,” Paltrow has said.

A new section Proxima will be introduced this year to replace the former East of the West selection and is open to film-makers from all over the globe.

Crystal Globe Competition

America America
Directed by: Ofir Raul Graizer
Israel, Germany, Czech Republic

Borders Of Love
Directed by: Tomasz Wiński
Czech Republic, Poland

A Far Shore Vzdáleni/Tooi tokoro
Directed by: Masaaki Kudo
Japan

Fucking Bornholm
Directed by: Anna Kazejak
Poland

The Ordinaries
Directed by: Sophie Linnenbaum
Germany

A Provincial Hospital
Directed by: Ilian Metev, Ivan Chertov, Zlatina Teneva
Bulgaria, Germany

A Room Of My Own
Directed by: Ioseb "Soso" Bliadze
Georgia, Germany

Silence 6–9
Directed by: Christos Passalis
Greece

Summer With Hope
Directed by: Sadaf Foroughi
Canada

Vesper
Directed by: Kristina Buožytė, Bruno Samper
Lithuania, France, Belgium

The Word Slovo/Slovo
Directed by: Beata Parkanová
Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Poland

You Have to Come and See It
Directed by: Jonás Trueba
Spain

Horizons

A Little Love Package
Directed by: Gastón Solnicki
Austria, Argentina

Aftersun
Directed by: Charlotte Wells
UK, US

Axiom
Directed by: Jöns Jönsson
Germany

Beautiful Beings
Directed by: Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson
Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Czech Republic

The Blue Caftan
Directed by: Maryam Touzani
Morocco, France, Belgium, Denmark

The Box
Directed by: Lorenzo Vigas
Mexico, USA

Butterfly Vision
Directed by: Maksym Nakonechnyi
Ukraine, Czech Republic, Croatia, Sweden

Captain Volkonogov Escaped
Directed by: Natasha Merkulova, Aleksey Chupov
Russia, Estonia, France

Corsage
Directed by: Marie Kreutzer
Austria, Luxembourg, Germany, France

The Dam
Directed by: Ali Cherri
France, Sudan, Lebanon, Germany, Serbia, Qatar

Decision To Leave
Directed by: Park Chan-wook
South Korea

The Eight Mountains
Directed by: Felix van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch
Italy, Belgium, France

EO
Directed by: Jerzy Skolimowski
Poland, Italy

Father’s Day
Directed by: Kivu Ruhorahoza
Rwanda

Fire Of Love
Directed by: Sara Dosa
Canada, US

The Five Devils
Directed by: Léa Mysius
France

Flux Gourmet
Directed by: Peter Strickland
United Kingdom, USA, Hungary

Gentle Něha
Directed by: Anna Eszter Nemes, László Csuja
Hungary

Godland
Directed by: Hlynur Pálmason
Denmark, Iceland, France, Sweden

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
Directed by: Sophie Hyde
United Kingdom

Harka Harka
Directed by: Lotfy Nathan
France, Luxembourg, Tunisia, Belgium

The Hole
Directed by: Michelangelo Frammartino
Italy, France, Germany

Joyland
Directed by: Saim Sadiq
Pakistan

Klondike
Directed by: Maryna Er Gorbach
Ukraine, Turkey

The Last Race
Directed by: Tomáš Hodan
Czech Republic

Love According To Dalva
Directed by: Emmanuelle Nicot
Belgium, France

A Love Song
Directed by: Max Walker-Silverman
US

Lullaby
Directed by: Alauda Ruiz de Azúa
Spain

Mariupolis 2
Directed by: Mantas Kvedaravičius
Lithuania, France, Germany

Mr. Landsbergis
Directed by: Sergei Loznitsa
Netherlands, Lithuania, USA

Mutzenbacher
Directed by: Ruth Beckermann
Austria

My Love Affair With Marriage
Directed by: Signe Baumane
Latvia, USA, Luxembourg

Pamfir
Directed by: Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk
Ukraine, France, Poland, Chile

The Passengers Of The Night
Directed by: Mikhaël Hers France

A Piece Of Sky
Directed by: Michael Koch
Switzerland, Germany

Plan 75
Directed by: Chie Hayakawa
Japan, France, Philippines, Qatar

Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W Bush
Directed by: Andreas Dresen
Germany, France

Reflection
Directed by: Valentyn Vasyanovych
Ukraine

Return To Dust
Directed by: Ruijun Li China

Rodeo
Directed by: Lola Quivoron
France

The Silent Twins
Directed by: Agnieszka Smoczyńska
Poland, US, UK

Sonne
Directed by: Kurdwin Ayub
Austria

Superheroes
Directed by: Paolo Genovese
Italy

Taurus
Directed by: Tim Sutton
US

That Kind Of Summer
Directed by: Denis Côté
Canada

Triangle Of Sadness
Directed by: Ruben Östlund
Sweden, Germany, France, Denmark

Una Femmina – The Code of Silence
Directed by: Francesco Costabile
Italy

Under The Fig Trees
Directed by: Erige Sehiri
Tunisia, France, Switzerland, Germany, Qatar

Utama
Directed by: Alejandro Loayza Grisi
Bolivia, Uruguay, France

We Met In Virtual Reality
Directed by: Joe Hunting
UK

The Woodcutter Story
Directed by: Mikko Myllylahti
Finland, Netherlands, Denmark, Germany

Working Class Heroes
Directed by: Miloš Pušić
Serbia

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