The 59th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF, 4-12 July) – the largest film gathering in the Czech Republic – has unveiled its competition selections in addition to the previously revealed John Garfield retrospective (see the news). Karel Och, KVIFF's artistic director, praised the selected filmmakers for “fearlessly protect[ing] the right to challenge expectations, disrupt stereotypes, and win over hearts and minds”, noting that despite budget constraints, they “push the boundaries while keeping in mind the necessary connection between a film and its audience”. He added that KVIFF “has always addressed political issues through powerful individual stories” and revealed that one Iranian film will be announced closer to the festival for safety reasons.

(L'articolo continua qui sotto - Inf. pubblicitaria)

The Crystal Globe Competition features Gözde Kural’s Cinema Jazireh, offering a harrowing tale of survival under Taliban rule, while Dmytro Hreshko’s Divia captures war-torn Ukrainian landscapes. France’s Nathan Ambrosioni returns with Out of Love, a subdued yet affecting portrait of reluctant motherhood, and Hungary’s Bence Fliegauf explores mythic vengeance in the haunting Jimmy Jaguar. Catalonian director Pere Vilà Barceló delivers When a River Becomes the Sea, a three-hour meditation on trauma and recovery. Regional talents are represented by Miro Remo’s Better Go Mad in the Wild, which follows reclusive Slovak twins in a reflection on non-conformity, and Ondřej Provazník’s Broken Voices (see the news), which examines abuse and power within a girls’ choir. Rounding off the competition are The Visitor by Lithuania’s Vytautas Katkus, a study in loneliness and dislocation that has received Cannes' Critics' Week Next Step Award and Les Arcs’ Co-Production Village's main prize during its project phase; Nina Knag’s Don’t Call Me Mama, a provocative Norwegian drama of desire and morality; and João Rosas’ The Luminous Life, a Lisbon-set ode to youthful inertia and unfulfilled promises.

The Proxima Competition continues to spotlight bold formal and thematic innovation. Among the selected titles are The Anatomy of the Horses by Daniel Vidal Toche, a genre-defying historical allegory from the Peruvian Andes, and Manoël Dupont’s Before / After, a tender, humorous take on hair transplants and queer intimacy. Maria Rigel’s Thus Spoke the Wind offers a cryptic, Tarkovskian vision of childhood and maternal return, while Federico Atehortúa Arteaga’s Forensics blends personal and political memory in post-conflict Colombia. Brazil’s Davi Pretto employs AI to explore class and identity in the dystopian Future Future. Eastern European entries include Nikola Ležaić’s How Come It’s All Green Out Here?, a subtle meditation on familial estrangement in post-Yugoslavia, and Vojtěch Strakatý’s The Other Side of Summer, a lyrical coming-of-age tale. Paula Ďurinová’s Action Item examines burnout in Berlin, while Alexandros Voulgaris’ They Come Out of Margo is a haunting, genre-blurring portrait of artistic isolation and emotional reckoning.

This year’s Special Screenings section captures a wide stylistic range from Paul Andrew Williams’ Dragonfly, an intimate British drama starring Brenda Blethyn and Andrea Riseborough, to Duchoň (see the industry report), Peter Bebjak’s vibrant biopic of the Slovakian pop icon. Meanwhile, the recent Cannes entry Caravan [+leggi anche:
recensione
intervista: Zuzana Kirchnerová
scheda film] by Zuzana Kirchnerová follows a single mother’s spontaneous road trip towards selfhood, while the section also includes the Czech-Vietnamese dramedy Summer School, 2001 by Dužan Duong, the documentary The Czech Film Project, and Laurent Slama’s near-documentary A Second Life, set during Paris’s Olympic fever.

Here is the full competition line-up:

Crystal Globe Competition

Out of Love – Nathan Ambrosioni (France)
Jimmy Jaguar – Bence Fliegauf (Hungary)
Divia – Dmytro Hreshko (Poland/Ukraine/Netherlands/USA)
The Visitor – Vytautas Katkus (Lithuania/Norway/Sweden)
Don’t Call Me Mama – Nina Knag (Norway)
Cinema Jazireh – Gözde Kural (Turkey/Iran/Bulgaria/Romania)
Broken Voices – Ondřej Provazník (Czech Republic/Slovakia)
Better Go Mad in the Wild – Miro Remo (Czech Republic/Slovakia)
The Luminous Life – João Rosas (Portugal/France)
When a River Becomes the Sea – Pere Vilà Barceló (Spain)
Rebuilding – Max Walker-Silverman (USA)

Proxima Competition

TrepaNation – Ammar al-Beik (Syria/Germany/France)
Forensics – Federico Atehortúa Arteaga (Colombia)
Before / After – Manoël Dupont (Belgium)
Action Item – Paula Ďurinová (Slovak Republic/Czech Republic/Germany)
Rain Fell on the Nothing New – Steffen Goldkamp (Germany)
Sand City – Mahde Hasan (Bangladesh)
How Come It’s All Green Out Here? – Nikola Ležaić (Serbia/Croatia/Bulgaria)
Future Future – Davi Pretto (Brazil)
Thus Spoke the Wind – Maria Rigel (Armenia)
The Other Side of Summer – Vojtěch Strakatý (Czech Republic/Croatia)
Renovation – Gabrielė Urbonaitė (Lithuania/Latvia/Belgium)
The Anatomy of the Horses – Daniel Vidal Toche (Spain/Peru/Colombia/France)
They Come Out of Margo – Alexandros Voulgaris (Greece)

Special Screenings

Duchoň – Peter Bebjak (Slovakia/Czech Republic)
Tehran, Another View – Ali Behrad (Iran/UK)
All That’s Left of You [+leggi anche:
recensione
intervista: Cherien Dabis
scheda film] – Cherien Dabis (Germany/Cyprus/Palestine/Jordan/Greece/Qatar/Saudi Arabia)
Summer School, 2001 – Dužan Duong (Czech Republic/Slovakia)
Promise, I’ll Be Fine – Katarína Gramatová (Slovakia/Czech Republic)
Caravan [+leggi anche:
recensione
intervista: Zuzana Kirchnerová
scheda film] – Zuzana Kirchnerová (Czech Republic/Slovakia/Italy)
The Czech Film Project – Marek Novák, Mikuláš Novotný (Czech Republic)
A Second Life – Laurent Slama (France)
Dragonfly – Paul Andrew Williams (UK)