Karlovy Vary Internaional Film Festival
The Pilgrimage to Karlovy Vary for the International Film Festival: A Report on the Parties and the Guests (and the Films)
By Eddie Cockrell, 14 July 2000

The Brazilian drama Me You Them (Eu tu eles) walked away with the newly-designed Grand Prix Crystal Globe this evening (15 July), as the 35^th edition of the revamped and re-energized Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (http://www.iffkv.cv) drew to a close in this picturesque Bohemian spa town (home of the exquisite herbal liqueur Becherovka) nestled in the rolling hills some two hours west of Prague. The festival opened on a note of lusty provocation 05 July, as a quintet of neon-wigged nude women took to the stage of the main theater to act out the theme of the fest, which seems to involve inspiration and guidance from above via swooping globes of light (as fest-goers were constantly reminded in a trailer that preceded each and every presentation). Subsequent to this, however, the vast majority of participants appeared to remain clothed for most festival events.

Framed on either side of the charming downtown by the festival center Hotel Thermal, where most of the major screenings took place, and the ornate, infinitely more plush Grand Hotel Pupp, the main drag features the twelve life-giving springs that have drawn patients and tourists for six centuries (it is customary to drink from the hot tap prescribed to you by a doctor from specially-designed porcelain cups which are favorite souvenirs, along with pancakes, stone roses and, of course, Becherovka -- the so-called "thirteenth spring"). For the ten days of the festival, expanded from eight for the very first time, the town is overrun by guests, journalists and especially students (9,100 participants total, up some fifty per cent from 1999), who throng here by the literal thousands and camp out where they drop when they’re not lining up for cherished tickets or hanging out between the Thermal and the Tepla river listening to the diverse procession of bands who plug in and fire up every afternoon. Although chilly and rainy for most of its duration, the 2000 edition of the festival maintained a propulsive energy that extends far into the night, as the very first spa in town, long empty, was refitted as the Villa Premiere and hosted massive multi-floor parties that rarely broke up before dawn.

It’s that easy to be distracted from the business at hand.

Back to the films for a moment: led by internationally revered Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, the international jury (see below) bestowed a joint Special Jury prize on Polish actor/writer/director Jerzy Stuhr’s charmer The Big Animal (Duze zwierze) and Lee Chang-Dong’s Korean entry Peppermint Candy (Bakha sating). The Best Director award went to Croat filmmaker Vinko Bresan for Marshal Tito’s Spirit (Marsal), with Special Jury Mentions handed to Bernard Rapp’s French entry A Matter of Taste (Une affaire de gout) and Fridrik Thor Fridriksson’s Angels of the Universe (Englar alheimsins), a co-production of Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Germany and Denmark.

Regina Case won the Best Actress prize for Me You Them, while the Best Actor award was split by two supporting performances, Ian Hart for the Norwegian-British opening night drama Aberdeen, and Hamid Farokhnezad for the Iranian entry The Bride of Fire (Arous-E Atash). The audience favorite was Alan Parker’s Angela’s Ashes, and special career awards were handed out to Spain’s Carlos Saura (who was on hand to present his newest work, Goya in Bordeaux), Hungary’s Karoly Makk, and hometown favorite Vera Chytilova.

Of the numerous other special and jury awards, a standout was the Philip Morris Freedom Award, chaired by the American Cinema Foundation’s Executive Director, Gary McVey. This year, the jury awarded US$5,000 to director Yaver Rzayev’s poetic Azerbaijan film Yellow Bride (Sari gyalin).

Yet as with most competitive festivals, the awards may soak up most of the light, but there’s a lot of heat elsewhere on any given day. This year, the festival was divided into the following sections beyond the competition: Horizons (weighted with higher profile but older American titles), the more internationally-themed Horizons-- Award Winning Films, the edgier Another View, East of the West, Forum of Independents, Variety Critics’ Choice (sponsored and curated by the trade paper) and Czech Films 1999-2000. In all, there were 535 separate showings of some 293 films, with a torrid sell-out pace of 305 shows through the first eight days. Only the venues leave something to be desired, as conference halls and meeting rooms with no business hosting screenings are pressed into service alongside more conventional spaces (this and parking are the town’s two major problems, the avuncular mayor said over Becherovka -- what else? -- during one particularly crowded reception).

The president and dashing authority figure of the festival is acclaimed Czech actor Jiri Bartoska, while programming chores have been managed once again by Eva Zaoralova. While the public face of the festival comes across as a bit arrogant at times (the opening night assertion that they’re on par with Berlin remains a bit of a stretch), there’s no question that on their watch the program has taken steps towards the international savvy, influence and edginess to which they aspire.

Freed of previous attempts at a business component such as a market or producers’ sidebar, the festival could concentrate on enticing actors and actresses to fly in for a few days (usually from a set close by) to introduce their work and preside over the de rigeur post-screening press conference. International stars who did make the trek mingled virtually unnoticed with other moviegoers. Thus, Julian Sands (presenting Mike Figgis’ The Loss of Sexual Innocence) could be seen chatting with backpacking students (a practice he encouraged), competitive entry Nora co-star Susan Lynch was a regular at Hell, the low-ceilinged Socialist-era nightclub underneath the Thermal, and such living legends of Czech film as Ivan Passer (whose landmark 1965 drama Intimate Lighting is due to be reissued on videocassette in the United States this summer) or cinematographer Miroslav Ondricek (Amadeus) were more than likely to be impromptu dinner companions at one reception or another.

Other notable attendees included the immensely popular Woody Harrelson (for the second year in a row, this time to introduce a Canadian documentary on smoking materials he narrated called Grass), Eli Wallach, Alicia Silverstone, Franco Nero, Edward Norton, Albert and Allen Hughes (in Prague making that Jack the Ripper movie From Hell with Johnny Depp, who was a no-show) and Dan Hedaya, who presented that new print of the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple and commented on how pleased he was to be in "Czechoslovakia."

That identity problem is something the festival’s working hard to overcome, as Karlovy Vary as it stands today is the best foot forward in the international film world the Czech Republic could ask for.

International Jury: Abbas Kiarostami (chairman); Iciar Bollain (actress, Spain); Sasa Gedeon (writer/director, Czech Republic); Arik Kaplun (writer/director, Israel), Srdjan Karanovic (director, Yugoslavia); Fred Roos (producer, USA); Jermek Sinarbajev (director, Kazakhstan); Dana Vavrova (actress/writer/director, Germany).