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7 July 2023

KVIFF 2023: Our festival highlights

There are few better ways to spend the first weekend of July than roaming between the picturesque pastel-coloured buildings of Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic, sipping a glass of Becherovka and revelling in the vibrant energy and summery glamour of KVIFF. This year, Russell Crowe was in attendance, opening the festival with a performance by his band Indoor Garden Party.

Ben Nicholson / Karlovy Vary
20 April 2023

Interview: Albert Serra, dir. Pacifiction

Albert Serra is a filmmaker with uncompromising vision. Whether he is reworking Cervantes’ Don Quixote with Honour of the Knights (2006), throwing together Dracula and Casanova in Story of My Death (2013), or depicting the final days of an aging monarch in The Death of Louis XIV (2015), Serra’s singular perspective shines through.

Ben Nicholson / Interviews
26 November 2022

Interview: Alejandro Loayza Grisi, dir. Utama

Coming from a background in photography and cinematography, Alejandro Loayza Grisi embarked on his directorial career with Utama, the tale of an elderly Quechua couple wrangling llamas in the Bolivian highlands.

Ben Nicholson / Interviews

Ben Nicholson

KVIFF 2017: Our festival highlights

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival returned for its 52nd year from 30 June-8 July. The beautiful spa town on the edge of the Slavkov forest in Western Bohemia played host to A-list stars and directors from around the world. As ever, showcased were some titles from this year’s Cannes Film Festival as well as the latest delights from Eastern Europe.

KVIFF 2017: City of the Sun review

★★★★☆ Georgian director Rati Oneli’s City of the Sun is in a constant dialogue with philosophical treatise and epic poetry, but the humanity shines through in his meditative exploration of a half-abandoned mining town. The title of City of the Sun is taken from a 1602 utopian text of the same name by Dominican philosopher Tommaso Campanella.

KVIFF 2017: A Ghost Story review

★★★★☆ Ain’t Them Bodies Saints director David Lowery channels slow cinema maestros Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Tsai Ming-liang in A Ghost Story, a beautiful meditation on grief, time and place. It doesn’t start out that way, though. Initially, A Ghost Story looks and feels like a stereotypical low-key US indie with subtle horror tropes.

Film Review: Risk

★★★☆☆ Laura Poitras returns with another probing political documentary, but this time the film’s own post production proves as fascinating as its whistle-blowing subject....