Karlovy Vary: The Verdict
Punk rockers, kick-ass senior citizens and fresh new cinematic voices from Iran to India made for a strong edition of the long-running Czech fest.
Karlovy Vary 2023
57th Karlovy Vary Awards
Juries at the 57th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival showered awards on the caustic Bulgarian tragifarce ‘Blaga’s Lessons’ and Sweden’s off-beat relationship satire ‘The Hypnosis’.
Facing Darkness
In his latest forensic documentary ‘Facing Darkness’, French director Jean-Gabriel Périot digs into the rich archive of amateur film footage shot in war-torn Sarajevo.
Keeping Mum
Director Émilie Brisavoine goes from fear to maternity in ‘Keeping Mum’, an emotionally raw but generally engaging documentary about the mother who abandoned her in childhood.
Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano
A behind-the-scenes look at the making of a film becomes a moving portrait of place and the healing power of artistic endeavour in Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano.
Thomas Imbach on his Pilgrimage to See Jean-Luc Godard
Swiss filmmaker Thomas Imbach talks about his new documentary ‘Say God Bye’, which screens in the Proxima competition at Locarno.
Citizen Saint
A flesh-and-blood saint causes chaos for a superstitious mountain community in Georgian director Tinatin Kajrishvili’s darkly satirical, bleakly beautiful fable, ‘Citizen Saint’.
Karlovy Vary: A “Russian spa town” no more?
Amid political turmoil in Europe and a push to overhaul Karlovy Vary’s identity for tourists, Russia plays a lesser festival role.
Scream of My Blood: A Gogol Bordello Story
A lively and engaging rock-doc. ‘Scream of My Blood’ chronicles the riotous career of “gypsy punk” band Gogol Bordello, including singer Eugene Hütz’s family roots in war-torn Ukraine.
Celine Song on Directing her First Film and Working with Producer Christine Vachon
The Korean-Canadian filmmaker is taking her directorial debut ‘Past Lives’ around the world.
Blaga’s Lessons
There’s no dignity in a market economy, as a scammed pensioner turns scammer in this caustic Bulgarian tragifarce and thriller.
CineVerdict: Brujería
La brutalidad colonial de enfrenta a la resistencia indígena en la historia sobrenatural con hechizos y brujería en esta película chilena situada en Chiloé.
The Hypnosis
An apparently well-put-together couple begin to come loose at the seams after a hypnotherapy session in Ernst De Geer’s awkward and offbeat satire, The Hypnosis.
Shorts That Impressed Us at KVIFF 57
From heart-breaking performances to queasy satire, from Pedro Costa to Christopher Lee, there was something for everyone in this year’s KVIFF shorts.
Restore Point
Death is not the end in Czech director Robert Hloz’s stylish and ambitious future-noir Euro-thriller debut ‘Restore Point’.
Death Becomes Him: Jan Soldat on Christopher Lee, death scenes and manipulating emotions
German filmmaker Jan Soldat explains his fascination with cinematic death scenes and the iconic actors who star in them.
Empty Nets
Behrooz Karamizade’s handsomely mounted drama Empty Nets is a compelling allegorical tale about the tragic loss of innocence at the hands of the powerful.
Pure Unknown
A forensic anthropologist works to return names to the unidentified dead that EU states have forsaken in this sensitive yet urgent and persuasive observational documentary.
Arsenie. An Amazing Afterlife
Alexandru Solomon leads an offbeat, high-stakes pilgrimage that connects dark history past and present, interrogating the idolisation of Romanian mystic Arsenie Boca through re-enactment and activist exploits.
Kudos to Jalmari Helander
The Finnish director is the creative force behind ‘Sisu’, one of the action cinema highlights of the year.
We Have Never Been Modern
A fresh, humanistic period drama that satirises the modernist project of a Czechoslovak factory town, and its sinister demands of conformity on the eve of World War Two.
The Lost Children
The reverie of an adult-free summer quickly becomes a monstrous nightmare in Michèle Jacob’s disconcerting portrait of childhood trauma, The Lost Children.
The Mother of All Lies
Moroccan documentary maker Asmae El Moudir blends the personal with the political in her formally impressive, puppet-driven, prize-winning family memoir ‘The Mother of All Lies’.
Wild Nights in Karlovy Vary
The festival’s Midnight Screenings confirm its commitment to versatile global genre cinema.
Kudos to Alexandre O. Philippe
The Geneva-born director is back in Karlovy Vary with his new William Shatner documentary.
Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry
The deliciously wry, gently unfurling tale of a middle-aged Georgian woman who rejects small-town conformity won the Swiss Film Prize for best film and best director.