The Karlovy Range Worldwide Movie Pageant (KVIFF) will have a good time two key milestones throughout its 2026 version, organizers introduced on Tuesday. This would be the sixtieth version of the competition, in addition to the eightieth anniversary of the primary competition. Basic movies from the likes of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, in addition to Ken Loach, will probably be among the many methods the competition will have a good time the double anniversary, in addition to an exhibition, a photograph exhibition honoring future former president Václav Havel.
Moreover, audiences can anticipate a revamp of an iconic competition house. “For this and future editions, the Karlovy Range Pageant is redesigning the world across the entrance to the Grand Corridor of the Thermal Lodge with a brand new architectural design that can enable the general public to expertise and share the competition ambiance extra intensely in the course of the opening and shutting ceremonies of the competition, in addition to in the course of the competition screenings,” defined the organizers. “Stay-narrated visitor arrivals will convey the competition motion nearer to guests and add fascinating behind-the-scenes observations.”
KVIFF additionally unveiled a gala screening of a digitally restored print of Věra Chytilová’s 1989 tragicomedy. Tainted overlapwhich grew to become the Czechoslovakian entry for what was then referred to as the Finest International Language Movie on the Oscars. Moreover, actress Magda Vášáryová will obtain the President’s Award at KVIFF 2026, which can happen from July 3 to 11. “THE The competition goals not solely to specific respect for the performances of one of many best Slovak actresses of all time, but additionally to recall the distinctive inventive bond between Czech and Slovak filmmakers who formed the frequent cinematic historical past of our two international locations,” the competition stated.
Different packages for this double anniversary 12 months will probably be revealed within the close to future. “The Karlovy Range Pageant is an occasion the place the long-standing custom and the format of a contemporary movie competition come collectively in a singular method,” KVIFF Government Director Kryštof Mucha stated on Tuesday. “Few nationwide cultural occasions can boast such a wealthy and different historical past. That is partly as a result of distinctive personalities who’ve formed its identification at totally different factors in its historical past. Many components have formed its character over its 80-year historical past, however it’s as much as historians to evaluate the extent to which state cultural coverage, the worldwide state of affairs and varied different components have influenced the organizational and inventive qualities of the competition.”
That stated, he emphasised that “the foundations laid by the primary editions of the competition within the post-war years gave start to an occasion that managed to outlive regardless of all inside tensions and exterior influences, that resisted makes an attempt at ideological management and efforts to abolish it, and that managed to remodel itself into an internationally acknowledged showcase and a spot the place filmmakers and audiences can meet in a singular ambiance of concord. It has develop into a competition that honors its heritage and manages to replicate the current whereas confidently shaping the way forward for cinema.
Karlovy Range, one of many oldest movie festivals on the planet, was half of what’s referred to as the “first wave” of post-war European movie festivals. Its first version befell in 1946 as a non-competitive occasion with 13 sections, together with worldwide participation, organized by the spa cities of Mariánské Lázně and Karlovy Range in the course of the first half of August. Organizers famous that it befell “earlier than the inaugural editions of the Cannes and Locarno festivals and even earlier than the primary post-war version of the world’s oldest movie competition, the Venice Movie Pageant (based 1932, renewed 1946)”, making KVIFF the second oldest competition.
“Kes” by Ken Loach, courtesy of Park Circus, Amazon MGM
After awarding prizes for the primary time in 1948, the competition moved completely to Karlovy Range in 1950. “The primary editions needed to face political realities which largely influenced programming choices,” emphasize the organizers. “The internationally famend journalist, educator and knowledgeable Antonín Martín Brousil (1907-1986) was one of many key figures who decided the character of the competition for a number of a long time. Along with serving to discovered the competition, he chaired the principle juries for a few years and basically served as its unofficial director of programming.”
Karel Och, inventive director of KVIFF, remembers: “Earlier than my predecessor, inventive director Eva Zaoralová, there was his predecessor, one of many founders of KVIFF, and Antonín Martin Brousil. It is usually due to him and the Karlovy Range competition that movies from Africa, Asia and Latin America are right this moment admired at main movie festivals around the globe. As early as 1962, Brousil created a platform for the pioneers of cinema from these identical continents inside the legendary part “Symposium of younger and new cinemas”.
However wait, why is KVIFF celebrating its sixtieth version this 12 months, 80 years after its launch? Sure, there was no version as a result of COVID in 2020. However past that, “the disproportion between the 2 anniversaries, the sixtieth and the eighth, is the results of a number of various factors,” clarify the organizers. “After not happening in 1953 and 1955 by political decree, the competition then befell solely each different 12 months. From 1959, the competition, which two years earlier had been acknowledged as a class ‘A’ competition by the FIAPF (Worldwide Federation of Movie Producers’ Associations), a class which additionally contains Cannes and Venice, needed to share this prestigious label and alternate years with the newly created Moscow Worldwide Movie Pageant.”
However “turbulent adjustments” are nonetheless a part of the competition’s historical past, organizers famous Tuesday. “Having spent the Nineteen Fifties looking for a significant identification, the competition really unfold its wings within the following decade, when it welcomed many representatives of worldwide cinema, solely to endure twenty years of “normalization”, a interval filled with restrictions that influenced each the collection of movies and the awarding of prizes. Solely with the easing of exterior pressures within the second half of the Eighties did extra necessary international movies and fascinating friends step by step return to the competition.”
The primary version of KVIFF post-Velvet Revolution in 1990 hosted a variety of exiled or banned filmmakers and the screening of beforehand censored titles. Nonetheless, uncertainty and deliberations over the competition’s objective ensued, leaving KVIFF on the verge of cancellation. “Due to the initiative of avant-garde filmmaker, artist and Ministry of Tradition official Igor Ševčík, the Karlovy Range Worldwide Movie Pageant Basis was established as a way to take away the group of the competition from the palms of the state, and the competition organizing staff was led by Jiří Bartoška as president” and Zaoralová as inventive director, the organizers defined. “It’s no exaggeration to say that these adjustments marked the start of a unprecedented interval throughout which the competition reworked into an occasion assembly trendy and worldwide requirements. Amongst different issues, the illogical alternation of competition years with Moscow ended and since 1994 the competition has been held yearly in Karlovy Range. The competition additionally efficiently resisted makes an attempt to maneuver it to Prague and, after two years of fierce competitors from the Prague Golem competition, it reaffirmed its standing as a very powerful cinematic occasion within the nation.”
Screenshot from the movie “Tainted Horseplay,” courtesy of KVIFF
This is a take a look at different KVIFF celebrations deliberate this 12 months.
Exhibition: KVIFF 60/80 (1946-2026)
The competition seems again on its historical past with an exhibition of images focusing specifically on its little-known beginnings, the ambiance of its editions earlier than 1989, in addition to key moments and friends. To this finish, 30 outside panels, positioned alongside the trail between two of KVIFF’s iconic venues, the Grandhotel Pupp and the Thermal Lodge, will take guests on “a symbolic journey” by the 80-year historical past of the competition.
Out of the previous – KVIFF 60/80 (1946 – 2026)
The favored “Out of the Previous” part, which highlights basic movies, will deal with necessary titles from the competition’s historical past. “One of many competition’s hottest everlasting packages, which often seems on the historical past of cinema, will tackle a festive type this 12 months,” Och stated. “It is going to include twenty rigorously chosen movies from earlier editions of the competition, that are firmly linked to its historical past as key milestones of KVIFF’s identification and popularity.”
Among the many movies unveiled Tuesday are that of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger A query of life and dyingthat festival-goers had been in a position to see for the primary time in August 1947, the Ken Loach basic WHOscreened at KVIFF in 1970 and which gained the competition’s high prize for greatest movie, the movie by Mexican director Emilio Fernández Hidden riverwho traveled to the competition in 1948, and the drama Lissy by Konrad Wolf, “a legend of East German cinema”, who gained one of many major prizes in 1957. However there may be extra: “For a very long time, the copy of one of many basic movies within the historical past of Australian cinema, the journey drama Captain Thunderbolt“, stated the competition organizers. “This 12 months’s celebration program will commemorate the premiere of New Zealand director Cecil Holmes’ movie within the competitors of the seventh KVIFF in 1952.”
Particular preview of the competition in Mariánské Lázně
The dual format of the primary version of the competition will return this 12 months with a particular preview screening of a specific movie from this 12 months’s program on July 1 on the historic Municipal Theater in Mariánské Lázně.
President Václav Havel and the Karlovy Range Pageant
“Over the previous 30 years, the Karlovy Range Worldwide Movie Pageant has loved the assist of many necessary figures, together with director Miloš Forman, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and President Václav Havel,” the organizers emphasised. “As a thanks for the assist and goodwill of president, playwright and creator Havel, the competition is celebrating what would have been its ninetieth anniversary with a photographic exhibition on the Thermal Lodge commemorating his visits to the competition and his conferences with varied representatives of world cinema.”