The August Virgin (La virgen de agosto) directed by Jonás Trueba won the prestigious FIPRESCI prize, awarded by The International Federation of Film Critics, at the 2019 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The jury commented, “The award goes to a modest, unpretentious film skillfully opening a number of issues and tackling a range of emotions while maintaining an inspiringly positive worldview.”
A total of 33 projects were screened at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) Eastern Promises 2019, the festival’s Industry section, with the exciting mission of being a bridge between talented filmmakers from the East and their potential Western partners, festivals and audiences. The juries announced the winners at the ceremony that closed the festival’s industry program in Little Versailles in Karlovy Vary.
The ten films which make up the Official Selection of the 2019 edition of the LUX Prize Competition was unveiled at the 54th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
Distantly related to The Devil Wears Prada, the enchanting comedy Late Night that wowed audiences at this year’s Sundance will close the 54th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. After a glittering career of twenty-five years, charismatic but jaded queen of late-night talk shows Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson) discovers her viewing figures are rapidly spiralling. But then spontaneous Molly turns up looking for a job. Might she be the desirable female element lacking in Katherine’s team of egocentric alpha males and frustrated oddballs?
Oscar-winner Julianne Moore will receive the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema at the 54th annual Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Along with screenwriter/director Bart Freundlichand, Julianne Moore will also present her latest film, After the Wedding (2019), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
This year’s 54th Karlovy Vary IFF East of the West competition is showing eight world, three international, and one European premiere, with eight of the competing films being debuts. The opening film is Aga’s House, the feature-length debut by Kosovo director Lendita Zeqiraj, who authentically re-creates the vibrant world of the energetic female protagonists.
The documentary competition at the 54th Karlovy Vary IFF will feature eight world and three European premieres. The selection includes Marc Schmidt’s In the Arms of Morpheus and Todd Douglas Miller’s Apollo 11, compiled using unique archival footage from the first mission to the Moon’s surface. The renewed festival interest in Chinese cinema is illustrated by two films about the transformation of Chinese society: While The Fading Village shows the decline of the countryside, Confucian Dream focuses on the urban population’s exaggerated return to traditional ways of life.
Films from Chinese director Zhai Yixiang, Germany’s Jan-Ole Gerster and American director Martha Stephens are among the geographically diverse selections in the 54th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival main competition section.
Ondřej Provazník and Martin Dušek make their feature-film debut out of competition at the 54th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival with the world premiere of Old-Timers, the dramatic story of two aging former political prisoners who set out in a camper van with the goal of finding and killing the communist prosecutor who sent the nation’s elite to its death. Jiří Schmitzer and Ladislav Mrkvička excel in this unusual road-movie.
The iconic Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine (1926-2008) will be honored at the 54th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival with a large retrospective of 11 remastered films consisting of early lesser-known works as well as established classics.
Olmo Omerzu, Jiří Konečný, Ada Solomon, Radu Jude (Film Servis Festival Karlovy Vary)[/caption]
“I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians” from Romanian film director Radu Jude won the Crystal Globe for Best Feature Film at the 53rd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. In the film Radu Jude takes up a massacre perpetrated by the Romanian Administration through the Romanian Army on the Eastern Front in 1941, an actual event that a young activist artist decides to stage. “As we are in the Czech Republic and my film was made with the Czech co-production, I would like to thank all the Czech people involved, primarily Jiří Konečný”, said Radu Jude.
Barry Levinson received the Právo Audience Award for his thirty-year old movie Rain Man. Levinson also received the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinematography at the Closing Ceremony. “This is really a wonderful festival and an incredible experience for us. And also an extraordinary honour for a boy from Baltimore to be now granted an award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema here in the Czech Republic. Film is an artistic form that interconnects the whole world. While differing feelings drive us apart, we should bear in mind that we are in fact all quite similar,” the director expressed his gratitude.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv4q3sWs8wE
The 54th Karlovy Vary IFF will be held from June 28th to July 6th, 2019.
ALL THIS VICTORY[/caption]
On Works in Progress at the 2018 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, eleven projects were presented from countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the former Soviet Union, and now also the Middle East. The jury chose ALL THIS VICTORY by director Ahmad Ghossein as the winning project. A prize in the value of 100,000 Euro will be given to the project.
The Eurimages Lab Project prize went to the winning project NORMAL by director Adele Tulli. KVIFF is the first of four international film festivals in Europe to be awarding the Eurimage prize. KVIFF has selected projects for the Eurimage prize that surpass traditional film methods and are based on international cooperation. The prize was awarded in the value of 50,000 Euro.
The Docs in Progress prize went to the winning project THE PROJECTIONIST. For this section, projects are chosen from Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the former Soviet Union, and the Middle East. The winning film received a cash prize in the amount of 5,000 Euro.
A Special Mention was awarded to the Polish project Little Poland.
ALL THIS VICTORY
90 min, Lebanon, France, Germany
Directed by: Ahmad Ghossein
Scriptwriter: Ahmad Ghossein, Abla Khoury, Syllas Tzoumerkas
Producer: Georges Schoucair, Myriam Sassine, Marie-Pierre Macia, Claire Gadéa, Fabian Massah
Camera: Shadi Chaaban
Music: Charbel Haber
Cast: Karam Ghossein, Adel Chahine, Boutros Rouhana, Issam Bou Khaled, Sahar Minkara Karame, Flavia Juska Bechara, Eli El Choufani, Charles Hbailiny
Language: Arabic
Genre: fiction
Release date: 07/03/2019
Synopsis:
Lebanon, July 2006. War is raging between Hezbollah and Israel. During a 24-hour ceasefire, Marwan heads out in search of his father, who has refused to leave his Southern village, leaving his wife Rana alone to prepare their immigration to Canada. Marwan finds no traces of his father and the ceasefire is quickly broken, forcing him to take shelter in the house of Najib, his father’s friend. Marwan finds himself trapped under a hail of bombs with Najib and a group of elders, who are friends of his father. Tension rises inside and outside of the house. Suddenly, a group of Israeli soldiers enter the first floor. The next three days sees the situation spiral out of control.
NORMAL
70 min, Italy, Sweden
Directed by: Adele Tulli
Scriptwriter: Adele Tulli
Producer: Valeria Adilardi, Laura Romano, Luca Ricciardi
Camera: Clarissa Cappellani, Francesca Zonars
Music: Andrea Koch
Language: Italian
Genre: creative documentary
Release date: 01/10/2018
What’s missing: final editing, sound post-production, color grading, international promotion, production financing gap
Synopsis:
An unsettling visual journey through gender norms in contemporary Italy. Blending realist and experimental aesthetics, Normal sketches a disorienting portrait of the accepted ideas of normality. A kaleidoscopic mosaic of everyday-life scenes observes the ritualized performance of femininity and masculinity in ordinary interactions, from birth to adulthood, interpreting gender as a corporeal and performative practice, a social ceremony, a collective mise-en-scène affecting our gestures, desires, behaviours, and aspirations. With an innovative and visionary film language, Normal meditates on the everyday constraints of gendered reality, producing a poignant reflection on a current and crucial matter.
THE PROJECTIONIST
70 min, Ukraine, Germany, Poland
Directed by: Yuriy Shylov
Scriptwriter: Yuriy Shylov
Producer: Gennady Kofman, Olha Beskhmelnytsina, Dirk Simon
Camera: Yuriy Shylov, Serafim Kusakin, Illya Ehorov
Language: Ukrainian, Russian
Genre: dramedy, documentary
Release date: 02/11/2018
What’s missing: sales agent, distributors, broadcasters, festivals
Synopsis:
Valentin is an eccentric projectionist. For 44 years, he’s been working in one of the oldest movie theatres in Kiev’s city centre. In his projection booth, he drinks with war veterans, dances with the show girls from next door or cuts his friend’s hair. Every day at work seems like another adventure. The turmoil on Maidan Square and the war remain behind the scenes, while the life on screen creates an alternative reality. It all comes to an abrupt end when a fire breaks out in the cinema and Valentin is forced to retire. He looks after his dying mother, rushing to help her the moment she calls. With an average life expectancy for men in Ukraine of 64 years, Valentin is aware that he does not have much time left. Still, he fights desperately to find a new meaning in life in a rapidly changing country.