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Festival coverage

Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

28 July – 6 July 2019

The 54th edition of the festival will run from June 28 to July 6. The festival will give its President's Award to cinematographer Vladimír Smutný and also feature a retrospective to Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine, including much of his earlier work. There will also be a strand commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution and the first chance to see the restored version of The Cremator.

More details to come as they're announced.

Other years (14)

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Latest reviews

  • Patrick
    Review preview for Patrick

    Tim Mielants's quirky comedy is shot through with melancholy and holds a deep affection for its earnest hero even when he seems to be the butt of everybody's jokes.

    Jennie Kermode · 3.5 out of 5
    Patrick lives with his parents on a naturist campsite. When his dad dies and he finds himself in charge he has other things on his mind... namely a quest for his lost hammer.
  • Papicha
    Review preview for Papicha

    Engages with an energetic and angry vitality as well as authenticity.

    Richard Mowe · 4 out of 5
    A student becomes determined to stage a fashion show despite religious opposition.
  • Tommaso
    Review preview for Tommaso

    Like many of Ferrara’s films, Tommaso starts out with seemingly insignificant details, but stacks them until they mount ominously.

    Sunil Chauhan · 3 out of 5
    An American film director in Rome tries to understand where life has taken him.
  • To The Stars
    Review preview for To The Stars

    Director Martha Stephens uses a palette full of soft browns and pastels designed to evoke nostalgia but shows us plenty of cruelty just under the surface.

    Jennie Kermode · 3 out of 5
    Under small town scrutiny, a withdrawn farmer’s daughter forges an intimate friendship with a worldly but reckless new girl in 1960s Oklahoma.
  • Ghost Town Anthology
    Review preview for Ghost Town Anthology

    The bleak chill of the Quebecois winter seeps into the very bones of Denis Côté's latest film, giving a sense of aching longing to the action.

    Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
    After a man dies in a car accident, time seems to lose all meaning for the residents of a small town... and then strangers begin to appear.
  • Adam
    Review preview for Adam

    Touzani has no time for throwing a pity party for these women, she shows instead that they deserve our admiration rather than our sympathy.

    Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
    A widow takes in a heavily pregnant young woman.
  • Fire Will Come
    Review preview for Fire Will Come

    In terms of basic plotting, there might not seem to be much here, but emotions crackle beneath the surface and the mood burns deep.

    Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
    A convicted arsonist returns to his rural home.
  • System Crasher
    Review preview for System Crasher

    This isn't an easy watch but it's a compelling one.

    Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
    Nine-year-old Benni radically defies every rule. But this feared ‘system crasher’s’ only desire is to stop living in a residential home and go back to her mother.
  • Dogs Don't Wear Pants
    Review preview for Dogs Don't Wear Pants

    Dogs Don’t Wear Pants ultimately relishes its uncomfortable themes buoyed by a little humour and hopes of a life happy ever after for our two damaged human beings

    Tony Sullivan · 3.5 out of 5
    A widower is struggling years after his wife drowned... meeting Mona, a dominatrix, changes everything.
  • A White, White Day
    Review preview for A White, White Day

    A White, White Day mingles some very dark dramatic moments with the comedy of the absurd.

    Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
    An off-duty police chief begins to suspect a local man to have had an affair with his wife, who has recently died in a car accident. Gradually his obsession for finding out the truth accumulates and inevitably begins to endanger himself and his loved ones.

A–Z of Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2019 reviews

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