Viggo Mortensen Western to launch Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
The 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival gets underway on Friday in the west Bohemian spa town. Among the biggest stars to attend this year’s edition of the region’s biggest film event will be Hollywood actors Viggo Mortensen and Clive Owen, as well as Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh.
The region’s biggest cinema event will kick off late on Friday afternoon with the arrival of celebrities on the red carpet outside the main venue, the brutalist Thermal Hotel.
Among them will be Hollywood actor and director Viggo Mortensen, who will receive the Festival President’s Award at the opening ceremony and who will introduce his directorial outing. Another actor to present himself as a director later next week will be the German actor Daniel Brühl, says the festival’s artistic head Karel Och:
“It’s been extremely exciting for a while now, ever since we got the confirmation, for many reasons. These are artists we respect a great deal and they represent not just actors but film directors as well, which is something that we try to emphasise, throughout the years. So I’m very happy that both Daniel Brühl and Viggo Mortensen, iconic actors so to speak, will be introducing their films they shot as directors.”
Mortensen’s Western The Dead Don’t Hurt, for which he wrote the screenplay, acted as director and producer, composed the music, and performed one of the lead roles, will be screened at the opening ceremony.
Australian actor Geoffrey Rush, who attended the festival back in 2022 to receive the Crystal Globe for his outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema, will this time be part of the main jury.
The most successful director in attendance this year will undoubtedly be Oscar-winner Steven Soderbergh. The respected filmmaker, who is known to only rarely accept invitations to such events, will present two of his films, Kafka and Mr. Kneff, which are being shown as part of the festival’s Kafka retrospective.
The Karlovy Vary film festival is also known for its eccentric and offbeat trailers, which are extremely popular with audiences, and which traditionally star some of the world’s biggest film stars who were previously honoured by the festival. In the past, they featured names such as Johnny Depp, Helen Mirren or Miloš Forman. This year, the festival managed to secure the Oscar-winning actor and producer Benicio del Toro, says Karel Och:
“Benicio graced us with his visit in 2022 and ever since he left Karlovy Vary and Prague he did not leave us; we stayed in touch. He always wanted to keep his promise, despite his busy schedule, to be the person in the next trailer. It was shot in a couple of hours during one of the intermissions of the shooting of Wes Anderson’s new film. So it proves that despite Benicio being in a huge movie he finds time for his friends from Karlovy Vary and we’re very grateful. And the trailer is absolutely amazing.”
Among the most awaited domestic films will be Jiří Mádl’s third film called Waves, which revolves around the international news desk at Czechoslovak Radio during the 1968 Russian-led invasion of Czechoslovakia.
The festival will conclude on June 6 with the traditional award winning ceremony.
People who don’t make it to the festival will have a chance to see a selection of the best films at the traditional Šary Vary echoes, taking place in selected cinemas in Prague and Brno in the week following the festival.
