“We’re 80 years old” – Karlovy Vary to celebrate landmark(s) in style
The jubilee 60th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival gets under way in the West Bohemian spa town on Friday. 2026 also marks 80 years since the event’s foundation, an anniversary that the organisers say places Karlovy Vary in a most exclusive club.
The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is the second oldest event of its kind in Europe; the first edition was held in 1946, making this the 80th anniversary of its founding.
Karlovy Vary’s executive director, Kryštof Mucha, says he and the other organisers have done their utmost to make 2026 special – including securing a guest of the calibre of true Hollywood great Dustin Hoffman.
“We were hoping to bring one of these Hollywood icons. And when we realised there was a chance that Dustin would be able to come, we thought, OK, this is exactly the year when we really need one of the icons. But also we wanted to have young, still very active filmmakers and actors, like Jesse Eisenberg and Maggie Gyllenhaal. So we’re very lucky, and I’m happy about that, that we have this mix of incredible filmmakers in town.”
Kryštof Mucha has been working at Karlovy Vary for almost three decades and last year took the helm following the death of Jiří Bartoška, the man who revived the festival in the 1990s and made it what it is today.
Mucha says he and artistic director Karel Och have been cultivating contacts in Hollywood for a long time – and that pays off.
“In terms of the guests, I feel that being able to go regularly to the United States… Karel and I go there three times a year and we try to maintain relationships with the agents and publicists. And I think that this is one of the fruits of this focus on being there so often.”
The reason this is “only” the 60th edition of a festival that began eight decades ago is that in the communist period Karlovy Vary alternated with the Moscow film festival, with which it was forced to share its “A” status.
Programme chief Karel Och has done a lot of research in the archives ahead of the 2026 KVIFF – and I asked him which landmark felt bigger, turning 80 or reaching 60 editions?
“I received this beautiful gift from what I’ve been doing, reading about so much amazing stuff that happened in Karlovy Vary ever since 1946. So I have to say it’s the 80, because that puts us in the exclusive group of the second wave of festivals, after Venice, which is the oldest. I’m talking about Cannes and Locarno, which are also from 1946. The number of editions, 60, we could not really influence, because of the political reasons. But we’re 80 years old.”
Looking to the future, Kryštof Mucha says the Karlovy Vary festival team aim to keep building on its storied tradition.
“We want to have the festival as a place where you will have the same feeling as you had in the past. You will have a chance to see beautiful movies, to talk to your friends and the filmmakers – and to have a great time with the festival audience.”
The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival runs until Saturday July 11.
