The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) has revealed the 24 films that will compete in its two main competitive sections this year, with all selected titles set to make their world premieres at the Czech festival.
The 60th edition of KVIFF‘s competition program combines established festival veterans with emerging voices from around the world. The Crystal Globe Competition, the festival’s flagship section, features 12 films from Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas, while the Proxima Competition again showcases formally adventurous works from emerging filmmakers.
Among the most notable returns to Karlovy Vary are Bulgarian directing duo Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov, whose The Father won the Crystal Globe in 2019, and Czech filmmaker Šimon Holý, whose previous features premiered in the festival’s Proxima section. The lineup also highlights strong representation from Central and Eastern Europe, including several Czech and Slovak co-productions.
Previous winners and returning filmmakers lead Crystal Globe Competition
The Crystal Globe Competition brings together a diverse group of filmmakers, several of whom have previously screened work in Karlovy Vary. Grozeva and Valchanov return with Black Money for White Nights, described by the festival as a tragicomic portrait of a generation forced to reassess its values. The Bulgarian filmmakers previously won Karlovy Vary’s top prize with The Father seven years ago.
Cypriot director Tonia Mishiali, whose debut Pause screened in the East of the West competition in 2018, returns with The Lion at My Back, while Czech director Šimon Holý makes his Crystal Globe Competition debut with Chica Checa, starring Pavla Tomicová and Jan Cina as a mother and son.
The competition also includes Slovak filmmaker Ivan Ostrochovský’s Only Beautiful Things to Look At, a period drama set in 1980s Czechoslovakia. The film stars Aňa Geislerová as a doctor navigating a system in which authorities controlled reproductive decisions.
Female-centered stories feature prominently across the lineup. Colombian documentary Five Years, Four Months follows women searching for missing children, while Swiss entry A Happy Family examines the life of a single mother whose children are removed by state authorities. Danish drama The Guest, starring Trine Dyrholm, explores family tensions and unresolved trauma.
Elsewhere, Iranian filmmaker Nader Saeivar’s Hijamat, produced and edited by acclaimed director Jafar Panahi, joins a competition that also includes films from Serbia, Chile, Lebanon, and Myanmar.
KVIFF Crystal Globe Competition titles
- 3 Weeks After (Miroslav Terzić, Serbia, Bulgaria)
- Black Money for White Nights (Kristina Grozeva, Petar Valchanov, Bulgaria, Greece)
- Chica Checa (Šimon Holý, Czech Republic, France, Slovakia)
- Five Years, Four Months (Esteban Hoyos García, Juan Miguel Gelacio Ramírez, Colombia, USA)
- Behind the Rain (Valeria Sarmiento, Chile)
- The Guest (Mads Mengel, Denmark)
- A Happy Family (Jan-Eric Mack, Switzerland)
- Hijamat (Nader Saeivar, Germany)
- The Lion at My Back (Tonia Mishiali, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Greece)
- Pipes (Karim Kassem, Lebanon)
- Only Beautiful Things to Look At (Ivan Ostrochovský, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary)
- Fruit Gathering (Aung Phyoe, Myanmar, France, Czech Republic)
Proxima competition spotlights emerging voices and experimental cinema
The festival’s Proxima Competition continues its focus on innovative filmmaking, with all 12 selected titles also receiving their world premieres in Karlovy Vary.
Slovakia is particularly well represented with two debut features. Martina Buchelová’s Lover, Not a Fighter is described as a humorous and stylistically inventive coming-of-age story, while sibling filmmakers Anna and Šimon Domček present 33 Steps, which follows a man confronting the release of the individual responsible for a racially motivated attack that left him seriously injured more than a decade earlier.
Several selections venture into documentary and hybrid forms. Truck Driver offers a collective portrait of Argentine truck drivers, while Homo Sive Natura explores the lives of Indigenous communities living in eastern Cambodia’s forests. Greek drama A Whole Person Almost centers on an unexpected connection between two people on an island, while Indian entry The Ink-Stained Hand and the Missing Thumb combines romance with elements of magical realism.
The section also includes Austrian filmmaker Rosa Friedrich’s My Friend the Porn Star, a playful examination of the adult film industry, and Belgian director Isabelle Tollenaere’s Paris Paris, which the festival describes as an allegorical story of loss, displacement, and discovery.
Other selections come from Mexico, Japan, Croatia, Italy, and the United Kingdom, reinforcing the section’s reputation as a showcase for new voices and unconventional storytelling approaches.
KVIFF Proxima Competition titles
- 33 Steps (Anna Domček, Šimon Domček, Slovakia, Czech Republic)
- Truck Driver (Francisco Marise, Spain, Argentina)
- Against Nature (Axel Bertha, Mexico)
- A Whole Person Almost (Efthimis Kosemund-Sanidis, Greece, Bulgaria, Germany, Cyprus, Romania)
- Homo Sive Natura (Giovanni C. Lorusso, Italy)
- The Ink-Stained Hand and the Missing Thumb (Yashasvi Juyal, India)
- My Friend the Porn Star (Rosa Friedrich, Austria)
- Lover, Not a Fighter (Martina Buchelová, Slovakia)
- Paris Paris (Isabelle Tollenaere, Belgium)
- Rain Catcher (Michele Fiascaris, Italy, United Kingdom)
- Incinerator (Shuntaro Uchida, Japan)
- Petty Thieves (Mate Ugrin, Croatia, Germany, France)
