04/06/2014 - The main competition line-up comprises eagerly awaited films as well as two Czech entries

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has unveiled the titles in its Official Selection Competition, East of the West Competition, Documentary Films Competition and Forum of Independents Competition. The line-up of the 49^th edition of the festival includes two Czech entries in the main competition: Nowhere in Moravia [+see also:
trailer
film profile], directed by respected theatre director and film actor Miroslav Krobot, and the already domestically distributed Fair Play [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Andrea Sedláčková. Along with Sedláčková, another two female filmmakers will be competing: Angelina Nikonova, with Welcome Home, and Signe Baumane, with Rocks in My Pockets. The latest feature by Hungarian filmmaker György Pálfi, Free Fall [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], is also in the main competition.

Kazakh director Nariman Turebayev is bringing his loose adaptation of Dostoyevsky's White Nights, Adventure. Marat, a loner, works as a guard caught up in a daily routine. A girl, Mariyam, accidentally enters Marat’s life, turning his nights into adventures. “There is a musical form called ‘rondo’. In rondo, a principal theme alternates with one or more contrasting themes, generally called ‘episodes’. This script is written in the same manner,” said the director as he explained the concept on which he based the script, making a clear distinction between the uniformity of the protagonist’s days and his adventurous nights. “This is a humanistic film,” he added.

Nowhere in Moravia, the eagerly awaited directorial debut by Miroslav Krobot, follows a barkeeper, Maruna, in her quest to find a partner in a rural village. The drama features touches of dark comedy throughout. The script was penned by Krobot himself together with psychologist Lubomír Smékal, who both see Nowhere in Moravia as a film about love, hope and gestures of respect.

Patchwork Family marks the first return of one of the finest representatives of French contemporary comics and filmmaking, Pascal Rabaté, to KVIFF since 2011, when he won the Best Director Award for Holidays by the Sea [+see also:
trailer
interview: Denis Delcampe
interview: Pascal Rabaté
film profile]. Rabaté’s offering is an ironic take on morality, in which the protagonist, Christian, is punished in medieval style for his petty swindles. Another Czech entry, the sports drama Fair Play, tackles the issue of state-schemed doping and questions of personal integrity.

I’m Yours, the second feature by Belgian director David Lambert, follows young, penniless Argentinian escort Lucas, who meets Henry, a Belgian baker, on the internet. The latter decides to rescue Lucas from the world of prostitution in Buenos Aires. Lucas becomes Henry’s apprentice, but soon he starts feeling suffocated by all the baker’s attention.

John Hawkes, Elle Fanning and Glenn Close star in Jeff Preiss´ biopic Low Down, recounting the life of bebop musician Joe Albany, as seen through the eyes of his daughter as he teeters between incarceration and addiction among the urban decay and waning bohemia of Hollywood in the 1970s. Meanwhile, the director of the Icelandic “bromance” movie Either Way [+see also:
trailer
interview: Hafstein Gunnar Sigurdsson
interview: Hilmar Gudjônsson - Shootin…
film profile], Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson, will present his latest subtle comedy, Paris of the North, as a world premiere. It revolves around a teacher who has to put up with his reformed alcoholic father.

Signe Baumane’s debut feature, the animated Rocks in My Pockets, is a harsh voyage through the nooks and crannies of mental sanity, rendered with a combination of papier-mâché, 3D backgrounds photographed in stop motion and traditional hand-drawn, 2D animation. The director has dedicated the film to the members of her family who have passed away, and to her surviving family, who are still living with the aftermath. Redemption and survival are two of the main themes in this tale of five women battling depression and madness.

The eagerly awaited Corn Island by acclaimed Georgian filmmaker George Ovashvili is also competing in the Official Selection. The spring rain creates a small island in the middle of a river, where an old peasant cultivates corn. Later, a Georgian border policeman steps onto the island and alters the seemingly ideal life of the old peasant and his 16-year-old granddaughter. Next up, the highly original Hungarian filmmaker György Pálfi will be bringing his freshest offering, Free Fall, to Karlovy Vary. The main topic of alienating human relationships pervades the film, recounted via Pálfi’s personal poetics. The title opens with a pensioner diving off the top of a building. After smashing hard into the ground, she picks up the shattered glass and, as the lift is out of order, takes the stairs. Each floor she passes harbours another odd tale.

Perpetual Sadness is the second feature by Mexican director Jorge Pérez Solano, which will be screened as an international premiere. Cheba and Ángeles Miguel are pregnant by the same man, and no matter what solution they find, their lives will be stigmatised by the eponymous perpetual sadness. Solano brings to the screen the bitter reality experienced by women who have to choose between a child and a partner. Finally, the director of Twilight Portrait, an unorthodox, revenge-driven story, will be coming to Karlovy Vary with yet another unconventional tale about capturing the American Dream. Angelina Nikonova has brought together a peculiar pack of individuals in her second feature, Welcome Home, in their search for a better life within the immigrant community in New York. The film is notable for its use of intelligent humour.

The line-ups of the festival are as follows:

East of the West Competition

Axınla Aşağı / Down the River
Director: Asif Rustamov
Azerbaijan, world premiere

Bota 
Directors: Iris Elezi, Thomas Logoreci
Albania/Italy, world premiere

Drevo / The Tree
Director: Sonja Prosenc 
Slovenia, world premiere 

Kebab & Horoscope 
Director: Grzegorz Jaroszuk 
Poland, world premiere 

Kirsitubakas / Cherry Tobacco
Directors: Andres Maimik, Katrin Maimik
Estonia, world premiere

Klass korrekcii / Corrections Class
Director: Ivan Tverdovsky
Russia/Germany, international premiere

Norviyia / Norway
Director: Yiannis Veslemes
Greece, world premiere

Rozkoš / Delight
Director: Jitka Rudolfová
Czech Republic, international premiere

Spomenik Majklu Džeksonu / Monument to Michael Jackson  
Director: Darko Lungulov
Serbia/Germany/Macedonia/Croatia, world premiere

Utóélet / Afterlife
Director: Virág Zomborácz
Hungary, world premiere

VAN valami furcsa és megmagyarázhatatlan / For Some Inexplicable Reason
Director: Gábor Reisz
Hungary, world premiere

Varvari / Barbarians
Director: Ivan Ikić
Serbia/Montenegro/Slovenia, world premiere 

The Forum of Independents Competition

Anderswo / Anywhere Else  
Director: Ester Amrami
Germany, European premiere 

Haneul e hwanggeummacha / Golden Chariot in the Sky  
Director: O Muel
South Korea, world premiere 

Little Accidents
Director: Sara Colangelo
USA, international premiere 

Memphis
Director: Tim Sutton
USA

La mezza stagione / Late Season  
Director: Danilo Caputo 
Italy/Romania/Greece, world premiere

Mnich / A Monk
Director: Maw Naing Aung
Burma/Czech Republic, world premiere

On a le temps / We´ve Got Time 
Director: Abdolreza Kahani 
France, world premiere

Parádně pokecal / Totally Talking
Director: Tomáš Pavlíček
Czech Republic, world premiere 

Rocket Rain
Director: Anggun Priambodo
Indonesia, international premiere

Ruido rosa / Pink Noise  
Director: Roberto Flores
Colombia, European premiere 

Sixteen
Director: Rob Brown
United Kingdom, international premiere

Violent
Director: Andrew Huculiak
Canada, world premiere 

The Documentary Films Competition

Autofocus
Director: Boris Poljak
Croatia

Comeback
Director: Miro Remo
Slovak Republic, world premiere

Fishtail
Director: Andrew Renzi
USA, international premiere

Istanbul United
Directors: Farid Eslam, Olli Waldhauer
Germany/Czech Republic/Turkey, international premiere

Le mur et l´eau / The Water and the Wall  
Director: Alice Fargier
Switzerland, international premiere

Opři žebřík o nebe / Lean a Ladder against Heaven  
Director: Jana Ševčíková
Czech Republic, world premiere

La Reina / The Queen
Director: Manuel Abramovich
Argentina

Sitzfleisch / Steadiness 
Director: Lisa Weber
Austria

Solitary Plains
Director: J Christian Jensen
USA, European premiere

Srok / The Term
Directors: Pavel Kostomarov, Alexander Rastorguyev, Alexey Pivovarov 
Russia/Estonia, world premiere 

Tal R: The Virgin
Director: Daniel Dencik
Denmark/Germany, international premiere

El tiempo nublado / Cloudy Times
Director: Arami Ullón 
Switzerland/Paraguay, international premiere

Il treno va a Mosca / The Train to Moscow: A Journey to Utopia
Directors: Federico Ferrone, Michele Manzolini
Italy/United Kingdom, international premiere

K oblakům vzhlížíme / Into the Clouds We Gaze
Director: Martin Dušek
Czech Republic, world premiere

Waiting for August
Director: Teodora Ana Mihai
Belgium

Wild Zwijn / Wild Boar 
Director: Willem Baptist 
Netherlands 

The full festival programme can be found here.