Karlovy Vary Film Festival pays tribute to an icon while Peter Sarsgaard and Vicky Krieps describe fascism

The 59th edition of Karlovy Vary International Film Festival started with a lot of style on Friday evening in the Czech city of the Spa outside of Prague. But the opening ceremony also contained many serious shades, because the winners Peter Sarsgaard and Vicky Krieps received the prices of the president before making brief remarks praising peace and denouncing fascism.

Krieps defended how cinema can cross borders and decorate by needing a judge or passport to determine what can be shared, while Sarsgaard specifically warns a perilous drift towards fascism that takes place in America, deploring that the United States is “withdrawals[ing] of its global responsibilities and TR[ying] To go rider alone.

As usual, the ceremony also included a performance of dancers in cones of light choreographed by the shed brothers who seduced the participants of the Grand Hall of the Thermal Hotel. Later in the evening, the Pop duo La Roux made a show that attracted crowds inside and outside the room while its tunes echoed through the small town.

However, the centerpiece of the opening evening was a film that paid tribute to the deceased director of the festival, Jiří Bartoška, ​​who died last May at the age of 78. After having occupied the role since 1994, working for years alongside the end of the festival, the former artistic director and film critic Eva Zaorová, Bartoška offered many stories about his time as an actor and director of the festival in the intoriatoic document “. (A conversation with Jiří Bartoška in July 2021).

Directed by Milan Kuchynka and Jakub Jurásek, the film was divided into chapters somehow with its subject bringing us back decades with nothing other than him and some occasional interjections while he speaks of a chair while smoking. Although lots of moments when Bartoška is reflected on the long journey that he and the festival have been, the documentary on a Czech film and TV Titan never gets tired because the late icon was able to run a fun thread with a lot of humor to lose.

While the conversation becomes more a kind of extended monologue, Bartoška brings a depth of knowledge on the film and the history of the festival so that, even when he forgets a detail here or there, he always has much more to say.

With each name and all history, many of which are literally funny, the flicker in Bartoška’s eye becomes more brilliant as it brings a refreshing and frank opening on the work of creating the festival. Although quite a loving tribute to man, the film does not jump how there were a lot of challenges that Kviff had to overcome to bring the festival where it is now.

The title of the film itself is a reference to a story that Bartoška tells at the end of the way in which there was a year when they did not have enough money and he had to get a loan from a friend to spend. The fact that the director has saved the documentation to this is only part of the way the film captures his passion for work and also his desire to make fun of himself.

Naturally, all of this played very well in the large Caverneux hall, serving as the last farewell of Bartoška to the community he brought together. The first of Friday looked like the type of special projection which cannot be reproduced elsewhere. It is difficult to imagine that the film gets a large release in the same way as the other night films of opening of the festival, but this narrower concentration is very well suited.

The fact that this could only have happened at Karlovy varies is a testimony of Bartoška himself. As it is reflected with a big opening, there are many festivals in the world, but none which is quite like its own. The fact that he started with the late director having the chance to look back one last time in an almost common shipment in the future has made a moving opening at the festival which must now continue without him.