The 2017 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival will begin in exactly one month, and today festival organizers revealed the details of films in competition.
KVIFF artistic director Karel Och, who just returned to the Czech Republic after serving on the Un Certain Regard jury at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, unveiled the lineup during a press conference in Prague this morning.
Highlights include new movies from acclaimed Georgian director George Ovashvili, who won the Crystal Globe in 2014 for Corn Island, and the final film of Polish director Krzysztof Krauze, who won the Crystal Globe in 2004 for My Nikifor.
Birds Are Singing in Kagali, the story of an ornithologist in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, was still in production when Krauze passed away in 2014. It was completed by his wife and co-director Joanna Kos-Krauze and will have its world premiere at the Karlovy Vary festival.
Ovashvili’s Khibula (pictured at top), which takes place in the director’s native Georgia during the country’s tumultuous struggle to instate democracy after Soviet rule ended in the 1990s, will also be having its world premiere in Karlovy Vary.
Local films competing for the top prize include The Line, a Slovak-Ukraine production about criminals who smuggle cigarettes across the border, and Czech director Václav Kadrnka’s Little Crusader, a medieval drama and adaptation of a classic local poem starring Karel Roden.
Keep the Change, a New York City-set romantic comedy from debut director Rachel Israel that picked up a trio of awards at Tribeca last month, will also be screening in official competition.
In the East of the West category, two new local films will be having their world premiere in competition with other movies from Central and Eastern Europe. Josef Tuka’s psychological drama Absence of Closeness, starring Jana Plodková, and Juraj Lehotský’s Nina, a coming-of-age tale and Czech-Slovak co-production.
The Documentary Films category includes another pair of local productions: The White World According to Daliborek, a portrait of a Czech neo-nazi from director and provocateur Vít Klusák, and Richard Müller: Unknown, a look into the world of the popular Slovak singer.
Here’s the full lineup of films in competition at the 2017 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival:
Official Competition
- Arrhythmia (Dir: Boris Khlebnikov, Russia/Finland/Germany)
- Breaking News (Iulia Rugină, Romania)
- The Cakemaker (Ofir Raul Graizer, Israel/Germany)
- The Line (Peter Bebjak, Slovakia/Ukraine)
- Corporate (Nicolas Silhol, France)
- More (Onur Saylak, Turkey)
- Keep The Change (Rachel Israel, USA)
- Khibula (George Ovashvili, Georgia/Germany/France)
- Little Crusader (Václav Kadrnka, Czech Republic/Slovakia/Italy)
- Men Don’t Cry (Alen Drljević, Bosnia and Herzegovina/Slovenia/ Croatia/Germany)
- Birds Are Singing in Kigali (Joanna Kos-Krauze, Krzysztof Krauze, Poland)
- Ralang Road (Karma Takapa, India)
Official Competition – East of the West
- Absence of Closeness (Josef Tuka/Czech Republic)
- Blue Silence (Bülent Öztürk, Turkey, Belgium)
- Dede (Mariam Khatchvani, Georgia/United Kingdom)
- How Viktor “the Garlic” took Alexey “the Stud” to the Nursing Home (Alexander Hant, Russia)
- The End of The Chain (Priit Pääsuke, Estonia)
- Mariţa (Cristi Iftime, Romania)
- The Man Who Looks Like (Katrin Maimik, Andres Maimik, Estonia)
- Pomegranate Orchard (Ilgar Najaf, Azerbaijan)
- Nina (Juraj Lehotský, Slovakia, Czech Republic)
- Falling (Marina Stepanska, Ukraine)
- Unwanted (Edon Rizvanolli, Kosovo, Netherlands)
- The Stone (Orhan Eskiköy, Turkey)
Official Competition – Documentary Films
- Another News Story (Orban Wallace, United Kingdom)
- Atelier de conversation (Bernhard Braunstein, Austria/France/Lichtenstein)
- Before Summer Ends (Maryam Goormaghtigh, Switzerland/France)
- A Campaign of Their Own (Lionel Rupp, Switzerland)
- Land of the Free (Camilla Magid, Denmark, Finland)
- A Memory in Khaki (Alfoz Tanjour, Qatar)
- My Life without Air (Bojana Burnać, Croatia)
- Lots of Kids, a Monkey and a Castle (Gustavo Salmerón, Spain)
- Tarzan’s Testicles (Alexandru Solomon, Romania, France)
- Richard Müller: Unknown (Miro Remo, Slovakia/Czech Republic)
- The White World According to Daliborek (Vít Klusák, Czech Republic/Poland/Slovakia/United Kingdom)
