The 54th edition of the famed Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is fast approaching, and festival organizers earlier today unveiled the lineup of films screening in competition.
Ten world and two international premieres will vie for the coveted KVIFF Crystal Globe in the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival’s main competition this year. Among those will be a Czech-Slovak co-production, Let There Be Light from director Marko Škop, whose previous feature Eva Nová won a FIPRESCI prize at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.
Bulgarian filmmakers Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov, the duo behind the highly-acclaimed 2016 drama Glory, will premiere their latest feature The Father at the 2019 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, while Turkey’s Kıvanç Sezer, who brought My Father’s Wings to Karlovy Vary in 2016, will return this year with the surreal La Belle Indifference (pictured at top).
Other filmmakers returning to Karlovy Vary this year will be German director Jan-Ole Gerster with the psychological drama Lara (Gerster’s Oh Boy played KVIFF in 2012) and Filipino filmmaker Dwein Baltazar with Ode to Nothing (Baltazar brought her debut feature Mamay Umeng to KVIFF in 2013).
American director Martha Stephens will bring To the Stars, which premiered at Sundance to warm reviews earlier this year, to this year’s Karlovy Vary film fest, while Cambodia-born UK filmmaker Hong Khaou will screen his latest, Monsoon.
Also screening in competition at this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival will be Zhai Yixiang’s coming-of-age story Mosaic Portrait; Jonás Trueba’s “conversation piece” The August Virgin; Patrick, from debut Belgian director Tim Mielants; and The Man from the Future, from Chilean filmmaker Felipe Ríos.
Screening in documentary competition at this year’s KVIFF will be eight world and three European premieres, including Czech documentarian Martin Mareček’s Over the Hills, Todd Douglas Miller’s Apollo 11, and eclectic Latvian filmmaker Laila Pakalnina’s Spoon.
In the East of the West competition at this year’s Karlovy Vary festival, Czech director Michal Hogenauer will premiere his latest drama A Certain Kind of Silence, Kosovo director Lendita Zeqiraj will present her feature debut Aga’s House, and other filmmakers from countries formerly behind the Iron Curtain will present their latest films.
Screening out of competition, first-time directors Ondřej Provazník and Martin Dušek’s Old-Timers, starring Jiří Schmitzer and Ladislav Mrkvička, tells the story of two Czechoslovak political prisoners out to assassinate a communist prosecutor.
Helena Třeštíková and Jakub Hejna, meanwhile, will present their highly-anticipated documentary on the Czech Republic’s most famous filmmaker in Forman vs. Forman, fresh from its premiere at Cannes. And US-based Czech filmmaker Martin Krejčí will bring his debut feature, The True Adventures of Wolfboy starring Chloë Sevigny and John Turturro, to this year’s KVIFF.
Further information, and films screening in additional sections at this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, should be revealed by organizers in the coming weeks. This year’s festival will take place in Karlovy Vary from June 28 through July 6.
KVIFF 2019 – Main Competition:
The August Virgin (Spain, Jonás Trueba)
The Father (Bulgaria, Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov)
Half-Sister (Slovenia, Damjan Kozole)
La Belle Indifference (Turkey, Kıvanç Sezer)
Lara (Germany, Jan-Ole Gerster)
Let There Be Light (Czech Republic/Slovakia, Marko Škop)
The Man from the Future (Chile, Felipe Ríos)
Mosaic Portrait (China, Zhai Yixiang)
Monsoon (UK, Hong Khaou)
Ode to Nothing (Philippines, Dwein Baltazar)
Patrick (Belgium, Tim Mielants)
To the Stars (USA, Martha Stephens)
KVIFF 2019 – Documentary Competition:
Apollo 11
Over the Hills
Up to Down
The Fading Village
In The Arms of Morpheus
Spoon
Confucian Dream
Projectionist
The Last Autumn
Immortal
17 Blocks
KVIFF 2019 – East of the West Competition:
Aga’s House
Arrest
Bull
Passed by Censor
Silent Days
Mamonga
My Thoughts Are Silent
Nova Lituania
Last Visit
Scandinavian Silence
A Certain Kind of Silence
Zizotek
KVIFF 2019 – Official Selection – Out of Competition:
Mystify: Michael Hutchence
Old-Timers
The True Adventures of Wolfboy
The Downfall of the Secluded Berhof
KVIFF 2019 – Special Events:
The Sleepers
Forman vs. Forman
Jiří Suchý – Tackling Life with Ease