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| Vicky Krieps: 'Movies can go across borders and transport the most powerful messages' Photo: Film Servis Karlovy Vary |
Under the sultry night skies of a Bohemian summer the 59th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival exploded into action with fireworks, while audiences enjoyed a pulsating concert by English synth-pop act La Roux and a double act of awards for actors Peter Sarsgaard and Vicky Krieps.
The occasion was also tinged with sadness as it was the first edition of the event without the familiar presence over three decades of its recently deceased president Jiří Bartoška, who was commemorated in the documentary We’ve Got To Frame It! by Milan Kuchynka and Jakub Jurásek.
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| Music makers La Roux at the opening concert in Karlovy Vary Photo: Richard Mowe |
Krieps, who won a European Film Academy Award as best actress for Corsage set the mood of the occasion, saying: “I love film festivals. I think they are just the best thing in the world. Movies can go across borders and transport the most powerful messages. They don’t ask for your passport or where you’re from or how much money you have, or if you’re cool or not.”
Accepting the President’s Award on the stage of the festival’s main auditorium in the Hotel Thermal she continued: “I was never cool. I didn’t finish my studies, but I’m here, and all I did was I believed in the dream. Movies give us the space to dream and hope. So, we should try and save the movies so they continue to exist, and they continue to spread the word of love and peace and, most importantly, forgiveness.” The actress appears in Love Me Tender, which premiered earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival.
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| Peter Sarsgaard: 'When there’s a common enemy, there is no going it alone' Photo: Film Servis Karlovy Vary |
Sarsgaard used the occasion to blast the current political situation in the US suggesting that “collective action is the only way forward in art and in our happiness.” He added: “As my country retreats from its global responsibilities and tries to go it alone, it is also being divided into factions from within, factions of politics, gender, sexuality, race, Jews split over the war. But when there’s a common enemy, there is no going it alone. Enemies are the forces that divide us, that individuate us. We all know who they are.”
As he held aloft his President’s Award he evoked the words of former Czech statesman, dissident and playwright Vaclav Havel who had said: “One half of a room cannot remain forever warm while the other half is cold.”
Sarsgaard will be present at a screening of 2003 journalism drama Shattered Glass by Billy Ray for which he received a Golden Globe nomination.
Other stellar names lining for attention are Michael Douglas, Stellan Starsgård and Dakota Johnson.
The Festival runs until 12 July.
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| First night audience at the 59th edition of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival Photo: Richard Mowe |
