Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has unveiled the official selection for its 58th edition, including new features by Mark Cousins, Noaz Deshe, Oleg Sentsov and Beata Parkanova.
The festival, which runs from June 28-July 6 in the Czech spa town, has selected 34 films for its official selection, which spans the main Crystal Globe Competition, the Proxima Competition and Special Screenings.
Scroll down for full selection
There are 11 world premieres and one international premiere in the Crystal Globe Competition. UK director Cousins world premieres A Sudden Glimpse To Deeper Things, a documentary portrait of British painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, a leading figure in the modernist St Ives group of artists. Cousins’ The Story Of Film: A New Generation premiered at Cannes in 2021, and his many credits include 2022 Telluride premiere My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock and Venice out of competition title The March On Rome.
Parkanova brings Czech-Slovak title Tiny Lights which follows a family break up as perceived by a child. Parkanova won the best director award at Karlovy Vary in 2022 for Word, which also won the best actor prize for Martin Finger.
Deshe world premeries German-French co-production Xoftex, set in a Greek refugee camp where asylum seekers pass the time by making satirical sketches and preparations for a zombie horror flick. Deshe’s White Shadow played in Venice Critics Week in 2013, winning the Lion of the Future – “Luigi De Laurentiis” award for debut film.
Also in the Competition line-up is rising Norwegian writer director Lilja Ingolfsdottir’s Loveable which centres on a mother who must come to terms with herself in a new way when her husband asks for a divorce. Loveable won best Nordic project at the Finnish Film Affair 2023.
The Crystal Globe jury this year comprises producer Christine Vachon, actor Geoffrey Rush, director Gábor Reisz, poet and novelist Sjón and actress Eliška Křenková.
Proxima competition
Meanwhile, Karlovy Vary’s Proxima competition returns for its third year. Open to features from around the world, it is billed as a section for bold works by young filmmakers and experienced auteurs.
It includes the international premiere of Turkish director Burak Çevik’s Nothing In Its Place, a drama that focuses on one of Turkey’s most bloody political massacres. Cevik’s The Pillar Of Salt (2018), Belonging (2019) and Forms Of Forgetting (2023) each premiered in the Berlinale Forum.
The films in the Proxima Competition will be judged by Sudanese filmmaker Mohamed Kordofani (Goodbye Julia); producer Bianca Balbuena, whose credits include the 2024 Un Certain Regard title Viet And Nam; Daniela Michel, the founding director of Mexico’s Morelia International Film Festival; Wouter Jansen, the founder of sales company Square Eyes; and Czech filmmaker Adéla Komrzý, whose film Art Talent Show won the Proxima Competition in 2022.
World premiering as Special Screening is Real from Ukrainian filmmaker and activist Oleg Sentsov, who joined the Ukrainian army shortly after Russia’s invasion in 2022. His film is billed by Karlovy Vary as an “immersive experience that offers a hyper-documentary insight into the reality of the war through the eyes of one direct participant.”
Karel Och, artistic director of Karlovy Vary, said the themes of the official selection offered a unique take on “genres and themes vibrating through the contemporary cinema.”
15 out of the films featured in the official selection are debuts.
Karlovy Vary 2024 Official Selection
Crystal Globe Competition
Rude to Love (Japan)
Dir: Yukihiro Morigaki
Banzo (Por-Fr-Neth)
Dir: Margarida Cardoso
Pierce (Sing-Tai-Pol)
Dir: Nelicia Low
Three Days of Fish (Neth-Bel)
Dir: Peter Hoogendoorn
Loveable (Nor)
Dir: Lilja Ingolfsdottir
The Hungarian Dressmaker (Slovak-Cz)
Dir: Iveta Grófová
Our Lovely Pig Slaughter (Cz-Slovak)
Dir: Adam Martinec
Panopticon (Georgia-Fr-It-Rom)
Dir: George Sikharulidze
Celebration (Cro-Qatar)
Dir: Bruno Anković
A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things (UK)
Dir: Mark Cousins
Tiny Lights (Cz-Slovak)
Dir: Beata Parkanová
Xoftex (Ger-Fr)
Dir: Noaz Deshe
Proxima Competition
Windless (Bulg-It)
Dir: Pavel G. Vesnakov
Cabo Negro (Fr-Mor)
Dir: Abdellah Taïa
Chlorophyll (It)
Dir: Ivana Gloria
The Alienated (Ger-Mol-Fr)
Dir: Anja Kreis
Nothing in Its Place (Tur-Ger-S Kor)
Dir: Burak Çevik
Stranger (US-China-Neth-Nor-Fr)
Dir: Zhengfan Yang
Lapilli (Slovak-Ger)
Dir: Paula Ďurinová
March to May (Cz)
Dir: Martin Pavol Repka
Second Chance (India)
Dir: Subhadra Mahajan
Trans Memoria (Swe-Fr)
Dir: Victoria Verseau
Tropicana (Isr-Can)
Dir: Omer Tobi
Night Has Come (Peru-Sp-Mex)
Dir: Paolo Tizón
Special Screenings
Czechoslovak Architecture 58–89 (Cz-Slovak)
Dir: Jan Zajíček
In the Land of Brothers (Ir-Fr-Neth)
Dir: Alireza Ghasemi, Raha Amirfazli
I’m Not Everything I Want to Be (Cz-Slovak)
Dir: Klára Tasovská
The Song of Others - A Search for Europe (Switz)
Dir: Vadim Jendreyko
Real (Ukr-Cro)
Dir: Oleg Sentsov
The Other One (Cz)
Dir: Marie-Magdalena Kochová
Tatabojs.doc (Cz)
Dir: Marek Najbrt
Waves (Cz)
Dir: Jiří Mádl
Journey to the Brink of War (Fr)
Dir: Antonin Peretjatko
The Gardener’s Year (Cz)
Dir: Jiří Havelka
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