03/06/2025 - The Czech film gathering rounds off its selection, which includes the latest works by Bence Fliegauf, Nathan Ambrosioni, Pere Vilà Barceló and Vytautas Katkus

UPDATE (26 June 2025): The festival has announced the addition of a 12th film in competition, Bidad, an independent Iranian production by director Soheil Beiraghi, and the story of a young singer who refuses to accept the fact that women in Iran are not allowed to perform in public. As per the festival's press release, "It was necessary to withhold the announcement of the film’s inclusion in the festival’s programme until he and the members of his crew could safely travel out of Iran."

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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.

The Crystal Globe Competition features Hungary’s Bence Fliegauf (Berlinale Grand Jury Prize winner for Just the Wind [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bence Fliegauf
film profile], Locarno Filmmakers of the Present Golden Leopard winner for Milky Way), who explores mythic vengeance in the haunting Jimmy Jaguar, and France’s Nathan Ambrosioni (Paper Flags [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], Toni [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), who returns with Out of Love, a subdued yet affecting portrait of reluctant motherhood. Catalonian director Pere Vilà Barceló (La Lapidation de Saint Étienne [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) delivers When a River Becomes the Sea, a three-hour meditation on trauma and recovery, and Lithuania’s Vytautas Katkus offers The Visitor, a study in loneliness and dislocation that received the 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 is a provocative Norwegian drama of desire and morality; João Rosas’ The Luminous Life is a Lisbon-set ode to youthful inertia and unfulfilled promises; Dmytro Hreshko’s Divia captures war-torn Ukrainian landscapes, and Gözde Kural’s Cinema Jazireh offers a harrowing tale of survival under Taliban rule. Regional talents are represented by Miro Remo (At Full Throttle [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Miro Remo
film profile]), whose Better Go Mad in the Wild follows reclusive Slovak twins in a reflection on non-conformity, and Ondřej Provazník, whose Broken Voices (see the news) examines abuse and power within a girls’ choir. Rounding off the competition is the US title Rebuilding, directed by Max Walker-Silverman, and starring Josh O’Connor, Meghann Fahy and Kali Reis, already seen in Sundance's Premieres section.

The Proxima Competition continues to spotlight bold formal and thematic innovation. Among the selected titles are the Eastern European entries How Come It’s All Green Out Here?, a subtle meditation on familial estrangement in post-Yugoslavia by Nikola Ležaić (selected at Locarno and a winner at Sarajevo with Tilva Ros [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) and The Other Side of Summer, a lyrical coming-of-age tale by Vojtěch Strakatý (whose first feature, After Party [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Vojtěch Strakatý
film profile], screened last year in Venice's Orizzonti Extra). Alexandros Voulgaris (Winona [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]) presents They Come Out of Margo (see the news), a haunting, genre-blurring portrait of artistic isolation and emotional reckoning; Paula Ďurinová (Lapilli [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Paula Ďurinová
film profile]) examines burnout in Berlin in Action Item; Steffen Goldkamp's Rain Fell on the Nothing New follows a young man's attempts to restart his life after having served his time in juvenile detention; and Gabrielė Urbonaitė's Renovation is a portrayal of Baltic millennials, who on the one hand are exposed to Western Europe's constant pressure to perform, and on the other still carry the traumas of previous generations brought up in the Soviet Union. Belgium's Manoël Dupont delivers Before / After, a tender, humorous take on hair transplants and queer intimacy, and Daniel Vidal Toche presents The Anatomy of the Horses, a genre-defying historical allegory from the Peruvian Andes. Rounding off the selection, 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, and Brazil’s Davi Pretto employs AI to explore class and identity in the dystopian Future Future.

This year’s Special Screenings section captures a wide stylistic range from Paul Andrew Williams’ Dragonfly [+see also:
film review
film profile], an intimate British drama starring Brenda Blethyn and Andrea Riseborough, world-premiered at Tribeca, and Laurent Slama’s near-documentary A Second Life [+see also:
film review
film profile], set during Paris’s Olympic fever and also world-premiered at Tribeca, to Duchoň (see the industry report), Peter Bebjak’s vibrant biopic of the Slovakian pop icon. Meanwhile, the recent Cannes entry Caravan [+see also:
film review
interview: Zuzana Kirchnerová
film profile] 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 (see the news) and the documentary The Czech Film Project.

Here is the full competition line-up:

Crystal Globe Competition

Out of Love – Nathan Ambrosioni (France)
Bidad - Soheil Beiraghi (Iran)
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 [+see also:
film review
interview: Cherien Dabis
film profile] – 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 [+see also:
film review
interview: Zuzana Kirchnerová
film profile] – Zuzana Kirchnerová (Czech Republic/Slovakia/Italy)
The Czech Film Project – Marek Novák, Mikuláš Novotný (Czech Republic)
A Second Life [+see also:
film review
film profile] – Laurent Slama (France)
Dragonfly [+see also:
film review
film profile] – Paul Andrew Williams (UK)