Karlovy Vary Festival reveals line-up with strong Czech presence
A month before its opening, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival organizers have unveiled the official line-up for this year’s 59th edition. Two Czech films—Broken Voices and Better to Go Mad in the Wilderness—will compete in the festival’s main competition. Another Czech title, On the Other Side of Summer, will appear in the Proxima section.
Broken Voices (Sbormistr in Czech), directed by Ondřej Provazník, stars actor Juraj Loj as a choirmaster whose character is loosely inspired by Bohumil Kulínský—the once-celebrated conductor of the Bambini di Praga choir, who was later convicted of sexually abusing underage girls in 2009. However, Provazník emphasizes that the film is not a biopic.
“That clearly inspires it to some degree, but it also draws from other cases of a similar nature. When I began exploring and developing the topic, I naturally conducted many interviews—with women who had been through Bambini di Praga and with people who had experience with other choirs,” he told Czech Radio last year, while the film was still in post-production.
The second Czech entry in the main competition is Better to Go Mad in the Wilderness, a documentary by Miro Remo. Based on the book by Aleš Palán and Jan Šibík, it captures the lives of loners and hermits living deep in the Šumava mountains.
Czechia will also be represented in the festival’s Proxima competition. Director Vojtěch Strakatý, whose debut Afterparty premiered in Venice last year, returns with On the Other Side of Summer, a lyrical portrait of girlhood set against the backdrop of the Bohemian countryside.
This year’s edition will also include a tribute to beloved actor and long-time festival president Jiří Bartoška. While the program is still taking shape, artistic director Karel Och shared some thoughts:
“At the moment, my colleagues and I are discussing the most heartfelt and emotionally rich way to honour Mr. Bartoška. Despite the sadness we’ve all been feeling over the past weeks, it won’t be a sombre tribute. We keep reminding ourselves that Mr. Bartoška would have scolded us if we gave in to gloom. He would have wanted it to be a celebration, not an act of mourning.”
Among the most anticipated events is the Czech premiere of Caravan, a new drama by Zuzana Kirchnerová about a mother and her disabled son traveling to Italy. The film had its world premiere just days ago at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival—making it the first Czech film in over thirty years to be screened at the festival.
Also featured in this year’s line-up is Summer School, 2001, a coming-of-age film by Czech-Vietnamese director Dužan Duong. Light in tone and full of humour, the film explores a generational clash.
Audiences can also look forward to What Makes a Czech Film Czech?—a unique project gathering reflections from some thirty filmmakers of various generations. The questions were posed to them during last year’s festival, and this year, their answers will come to life on screen.
