Karlovy Vary is back. Central Europe’s premier film festival, whose innovative, open-minded programming offers a welcome change of pace from the big festivals like Cannes and Venice, unspools from June 28 to July 6. The typically small but select roster of celebrity guests this year includes Steven Soderbergh, Viggo Mortensen, Clive Owen and Daniel Brühl, and Mortensen’s second directing venture, The Dead Don’t Hurt, a Western romance in which he costars with Vicky Krieps, will open the festival.
It marks a year of renewal for the selection committee, which vaunts two new younger members — Vojtech Kocárník and Petra Vocadlová – plus the return of another young programmer, Natalia Kozákova, under the experienced eye of Karel Och, the festival’s artistic director since 2011. How this generational shift will affect the festival remains to be seen, but Och asserts it has already shifted the conversation on film selection, with lots of countries and lots of female directors in the mix this year. A glance at this year’s official program, where half the film directors are making their feature debuts, also shows a large number of youthful, often teenage, protagonists. To press a point, the heroine of Beata Parkanová’s Tiny Lights is six years old. (Parkanová’s won the festival’s best director award two years ago with The Word.)
The main jury of the Crystal Globe competition, which includes producer Christine Vachon and actor Geoffrey Rush, will be called on to judge a wide variety of work and a diversity of themes. For example, contrast Mark Cousins’ refined A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things, centered on the intriguing modernist British painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, with Adam Martinec’s Our Lovely Pig Slaughter, featuring the joys of a traditional pig-killing festival in the village.
Period dramas containing lessons for the present are in fair abundance and include themes that reverberate today, like the Croatian Celebration directed by Bruno Ankovic which deals with how powerful rightist ideology can enthrall a certain type of young man. Set in the 1940’s in Slovakia, Iveta Grófová’s The Hungarian Dressmaker delves into the rise of nationalism, while Banzo by Margarida Cardoso proposes an exploration of colonialism in which a young doctor in 1907 treats island workers plagued with a mysterious illness.
Outside the competition program, the festival’s Kafka-themed retrospective looks to be a highlight, especially as it brings Steven Soderbergh to Karlovy Vary with both versions of his playfully cryptic homage Kafka (1991), recently updated and recut as Mr. Kneff (2023). Marking the centenary of the local Czech literary legend’s death, this generous sidebar proves how timeless and universal his signature themes of existential angst and urban paranoia have become, with a rich film section that spans France to Japan, Senegal to America, Welles to Fellini, Lynch to Scorsese.
Also of note, this is the third year running that Karlovy Vary has excluded Russian films. Once a major player at the festival, since it was founded during the Soviet era, Russia is now a pariah here as it is across most of the film world (though Cannes has bucked this trend, most recently with Limonov – A Ballad in competition this year.) Instead, the war in Ukraine has inevitably become a fixture on the KV screen, with documentaries shot on the battlefield a recurring motif. One of this year’s talking points is sure to be Real, which unfolds in real time over 90 minutes. It was shot by accident on a helmet-mounted GoPro camera by Crimean film director, soldier and former political prisoner Oleh Sentsov as he took part in a heated battle with Russian forces last summer. Raw, unedited and immersive, this may well be the first ever “found footage” war film.
