Czech Films and Co-productions at Karlovy Vary IFF

05 June 2018

Czech Film

Czech Films and Co-productions at Karlovy Vary IFF

Czech Film

Czech Films and Co-productions at Karlovy Vary IFF

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53rd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has announced its competition line-up. This year, the selection includes a record number of 12 Czech and co-production movies that will have their world premiere at the festival.  Three Czech films – a road movie Winter Flies by Olmo Omerzu, Adam Sedlák’s feature debut Domestique and a minority Czech co-production “I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History As Barbarians” by Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude – will try their luck in the main competition section. The East of the West competition includes the debut Moments (d. Beata Parkanová), Bear with Us (d. Tomáš Pavlíček) and minority co-production Via Carpatia by Klara Kochańska. Tomáš Bojar's Breaking News, Jana Andert’s Inside Mosul and Putin’s Witnesses by Vitaly Mansky, shot again in the Czech co-production, were selected for the documentary competition. Finally, Benjamin Tuček’s sci-fi comedy Trash on Mars will be presented out of competition and two documentaries King Skate by Šimon Šafránek and Michal Varga’s Circus Rwanda will be part of non-competitive Special Events section.

Czech-based, Slovenian-born Olmo Omerzu will present his road movie Winter Flies about two boys, who set out into the frozen wastes in search of adventure. The film was produced by Jiří Konečný (endorfilm) and supported by the Czech Film Fund with €367,450. Adam Sedlák‘s feature-length debut Domestique is also Jakub Jíra’s production debut (ShorePoints). The story is centred around the bicycle racer who is willing to sacrifice everything for the team including his wife Šarlota. Domestique has garnered €97,000 in support from the Czech Film Fund. Romanian director Radu Jude’s new film “I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History As Barbarians” unfolds the national trauma from World War II. The film was co-produced by Romania, Czech Republic, France, Bulgaria, and Germany, and was supported by the Czech Film Fund as a minority co-production with €156,863. It is the second cooperation between Czech producer Jiří Konečný (endorfilm), Romanian producer Ada Solomon (Hi Film Productions) and director Radu Jude.

The East of the West Competition section includes three films with Czech footprint. Beata Parkanová’s debut Moments depicts the story of Anežka whose life seems not to belong to her anymore, as her entire family wants to get involved in every aspect of it. The film was supported by the Czech Film Fund with €168,235 and was produced by Viktor Tauš (HEAVEN’S GATE). Tomáš Pavlíček’s Bear with Us – a comedy about a family who gather in their country cottage for the last night before it’s sold. The Czech Film Fund supported Bear with Us, produced by Tomáš Michálek and Jakub Mahler (MasterFilm), with €272,941. The third film selected for the competition is Klara Kochańska’s feature-length debut Via Carpatia, which was shot in Polish-Czech-Macedonian co-production and the Czech producer is again Viktor Tauš (HEAVEN’S GATE).

The documentary competition will also present three Czech films. Tomáš Bojar's Breaking News observes two newsrooms during Czech president’s decision whether to run or not for re-election. The feature has garnered €37,255 support from the Czech Film Fund and was produced by Tomáš Bojar’s Cinema Arsenal. In a war documentary Inside the War on ISIS, Jana Andert for eight months filmed the elite unit of the Iraqi Army in the first battle line in 2016. The Czech Film Fund supported the film produced by Jan Macola (Mimesis Film) with €19,608. The latest work filmed by previous Karlovy Vary winner Vitaly Mansky, Putin’s Witnesses, takes a fascinating look at the presidential career of Vladimir Putin. Co-produced by Filip Remunda and Vít Klusák (Hypermarket Film), the film was also supported by the Czech Film Fund with €39,216.

In addition to the Czech films in the competition sections, the festival gives a special space to three more films. Benjamin Tuček’s sci-fi comedy Trash on Mars, which was shot in a simulated space station facility in the desert of Utah, will have its world premiere out of competition. Two documentaries, King Skate by Šimon Šafránek, produced by Negativ, and Michal Varga’s Circus Rwanda, produced by Xova Film, will be both presented as Special Events at the festival. They were also supported by Czech Film Fund - King Skate with an amount of €58,824 and Circus Rwanda received €56,863.

Moreover, a selection of ten Czech films from the past year will be shown in the non-competitive section Czech Films 2017-2018, including Jan Švankmajer’s Insect, Martin Šulík’s The Interpreter, Jakub Šmíd’s Short Cut or the documentaries Nothing Like Before by Lukáš Kokeš and Klára Tasovská or When the War Comes by Jan Gebert. Several other Czech new films as well as some Czechoslovak restored classics will be presented in other sections of the festival.The full list is available here.

Lastly, this year’s 53rd edition of the Karlovy Vary International Festival will honour the memory of the recently deceased Miloš Forman at its opening Ceremony. The opening film of this year's festival will be Forman’s legendary comedy Loves of a Blonde (1965). Music from Miloš Forman’s films, such as Loves of a Blonde, Taking Off, Valmont, Amadeus or Hair will be performed by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra during the opening concert, following the ceremony on June 29th.

Domestique
Director: Adam Sedlák
Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, 2018, 116 min, world premiere
Section: Official Selection - Competition
Roman is a top level cyclist recovering from an injury through hard work and strict regimen. To improve his performance, he even sleeps in an oxygen tent installed in his bedroom. That is a bitter pill to swallow for his wife, Šarlota, whose long-time wish is to conceive a child. And so they both brim with determination, get lost in their obsessions, and improve their bodies to a point where they might even frighten themselves. With each night they spend in the oxygen tent, their relationship changes. Will they be able to catch a breath again in this claustrophobic environment?

Winter Flies
Director: Olmo Omerzu
Czech Republic, Slovenia, Poland, Slovak Republic, 2018, 85 min, world premiere 
Section: Official Selection - Competition
The story begins at a police station with an interrogation of Mára, a teenager who is said to have stolen a car and driving it across the country. The boy will not reveal who he is, where he is from, or whether the car, registered on the other end of the country, has been stolen or just borrowed. The cops cannot believe that the boy could have possibly made such a long trip on his own. Gradually, Mára begins to tell a story full of fantastic details. The line between the truth, lies and manipulation is very thin.

"I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History As Barbarians"
Director: Radu Jude 
Romania, Czech Republic, France, Bulgaria, Germany, 2018, 140 min, world premiere 
Section: Official Selection - Competition
military reenactment – Hannah Arendt – show – 1941, “the year that keeps returning”, as seen from 2018 – quotations – firearms – archive footage – the Odessa massacre – 16 mm and video – the Military Museum – negationism – videomapping – burlesque – dialogues – fanfare – Isaac Babel – fragmented narrative – Wenn die Soldaten durch die Stadt marschieren – trivialization by comparison – script by Marshal Antonescu – fire – directed by Radu Jude – featuring Ioana Iacob, Alexandru Dabija,Alex Bogdan – barracks jokes – ordinary people - nunca más! – the present past, the past present.

Bear with Us
Director: Tomáš Pavlíček
Czech Republic, 2018, 77 min, world premiere 
Section: East of the West - Competition
Misty autumn. A man and his wife are about to sell their family cottage. The wife is not sure about the sale and thinks the family should at least spend one last night in the house. Her husband doesn't like that idea. While Grandma hates the cottage, Grandpa doesn't really take notice of reality anymore. Daughter lives in Germany with her German boyfriend and Son was recently left by his girlfriend. But Mother insists, so in the morning of the All Souls Day, the family departs for the cottage. The tensions within the family grow. When they wake up in the morning they find out Grandpa has disappeared. It is not clear whether there will be any sale taking place at all.

Moments
Director: Beata Parkanová
Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, 2018, 95 min, world premiere 
Section: East of the West - Competition
Contemporary family drama Moments is structured around the character of young warm-hearted woman Anežka, who is always there for her family, tries to help everybody and keep her promises. But she learns in the course of the story that one's selfsacrifice has to be limited and that sometimes she also needs to fulfil her own dreams and longings. Moments is a film about everyday life, primary emotions, family relations and desire for harmony that we all struggle with.

Breaking News
Director: Tomáš Bojar
Czech Republic, 2018, 75 min, world premiere 
Section: Documentary Films - CompetitionOne day, two newsrooms, one event that has grabbed the headlines. Tonight, the Czech president is expected to make it clear whether he is going to run for the office again, announcing his decision to a group of his sympathizers and supporters gathered at the Prague Castle. Journalists are not allowed to attend the event, and will only be notified about the president’s decision the next day. This obviously piques their interest and they want to get the information tonight. The newsrooms in the Czech Television and Hospodářské noviny daily have been closely monitoring the event since early this morning. This gives us the opportunity to get a close look at two different teams of reporters and editors as they put together their “breaking news”, both covering one and the same event. However, the way these two newsrooms go about their business is not quite the same. The resulting film offers a very fresh and authentic inside look into the practices of journalists working for the traditional media, within the context of our hectic times characterised by information overload.

Putin's Witnesses
Director: Vitaly Mansky
Latvia, Switzerland, Czech Republic, 2018, 102 min, world premiere 
Section: Documentary Films - Competition
The events of the film begin on December 31, 1999 when Russia was acquainted with its new President. The film is based on unique and strictly documentary testimonies of the true causes and consequences of the operation “Successor”, as a result of which Russia ended up with the President who still rules the country. The protagonists of the film are Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin, and the Russian nation, as always being a silent witness of its own destiny.

Inside Mosul
Director: Jana Andert
Czech Republic, 2018, 70 min, world premiere 
Section: Documentary Films - Competition
Czech documentarist Jana Andert left for Iraq in autumn 2016. For eight months she lived and shot there at the front line of the battle of Mosul with Golden Division, an elite Iraq Army squad. She got into the situation at her own expenses without support of any the big TV stations she usually works for. Thanks to that she could be completly independent and not to respect any security meassures usually imposed by those stations. She just wanted to be at the front line.

Trash on Mars
Director: Benjamin Tuček
Czech Republic, 2018, 84 min, world premiere 
Section: Official Selection - Out of Competition
Budget cuts have stopped space conquest and flights to Mars have been canceled. The robot, Bot, has been left in an abandoned station. He has an order to colonize Mars but nobodyis coming. He is keeping the station in a standby mode and waiting for the new expedition. When the day finally comes, instead of scientists and technology, they are sending tourists. Each of them has their own idea how to fill the empty space. Shocked by the quality of people, Bot needs to find a new way how to finish his original mission. The only problem is that the tourists don’t understand the process of colonization. So he has to decrease his intelligence to the basic level of human needs. But is he capable of pretending to be a human? 

King Skate
Director: Šimon Šafránek 
Czech Republic, 2018, 82 min, world premiere 
Section: Special Events
The film on beginnings and development of skateboarding in Czechoslovakia during 1975 – 1989. This new western sport became quite attractive and contagious kind of entertainment for young people in otherwise dull environment of socialist Czechoslovakia.

Circus Rwanda
Director: Michal Varga
Czech Republic, Slovakia, 2018, 80 min, world premiere 
Section: Special Events
Rosťa Novák, the principal of Cirk La Putyka ensemble, artistic workaholic and perfectionist, agrees to make a joint project with a group of acrobats from Rwanda. First time in his life, Rosťa travels to Africa, to create a circus show about clash of different cultures. How will he cope with the clash of his expectations and Rwandese reality?

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