Skip to main content

Festival coverage

Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

20 August – 28 June 2021

Pleasure
Pleasure

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival celebrated its 55th edition in 2021, with a line-up including outstanding Czech and international films made over the previous two years.

The festival ran from from 20 to 28 August.

Other years (14)

Box office and information

Latest reviews

  • Vortex
    Review preview for Vortex

    The most restrained and yet audacious, unadorned and still intelligent picture the Argentinian auteur has made.

    Levan Tskhovrebadze · 4 out of 5
    Drama focused on a handful of dark days in the lives of an elderly couple in Paris.
  • Hit The Road
    Review preview for Hit The Road

    Panahi and his actors shift through emotions so smoothly, you barely notice them until they have immersed you.

    Amber Wilkinson · 5 out of 5
    Drama based around a road trip in a borrowed car.
  • As Far as I Can Walk
    Review preview for As Far as I Can Walk

    Strahinja’s whole journey leaves the feeling of participating in a sort of pilgrimage with him, via a vérité shooting style that works all the steady-cam shakes in its favour, adding to the film's authenticity.

    Nikola Jovic · 4 out of 5
    Strahinja and his wife Ababuo left Ghana with a dream of a better life in Europe, only to find themselves stranded in Serbia. One day, Ababuo goes missing.
  • Between Two Worlds
    Review preview for Between Two Worlds

    Binoche gives her all, stripping away any vestiges of actressy pretence to assimilate herself in the community while at the same time investing her performance with an authentic conviction.

    Richard Mowe · 4 out of 5
    Marianne Winckler, a well-known author, goes to live in northern France to research for her new book on the subject of job insecurity. Without revealing her true identity, she gets hired as a cleaner, working with a group of other women.
  • The Tale Of King Crab
    Review preview for The Tale Of King Crab

    The use of traditional folk song and the fact that the language shifts from Italian to Spanish also highlights the way that stories are passed from mouth to ear down the generations and across borders.

    Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
    Italy, today. Some elderly hunters reminisce about the tale of Luciano - a drunk who locks horns with the head of the region over right of passage and is later exiled.
  • Boiling Point
    Review preview for Boiling Point

    Given the state of the things, it's fair to say that some of the situations that will arise are telegraphed ahead of time, but that adds rather than detracts from the tension - after all, aren't all satisfying meals in some ways connected to anticipation?

    Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
    The shift has hardly begun for head chef Andy and he’s already behind with everything. His restaurant is overbooked, there’s a disgruntled inspector combing the kitchen and, if that weren’t enough, a culinary icon and a respected food critic have turned up for dinner.
  • Onoda: 10,000 Nights In The Jungle
    Review preview for Onoda: 10,000 Nights In The Jungle

    Harari and his co-writers Bernard Cendron and Vincent Poymiro, show how the war propaganda becomes internalised in these men, so that even when they are given signs that the conflict may be over, they rationalise that it must be some sort of 'fake news' designed to trick them.

    Amber Wilkinson · 5 out of 5
    It's the end of 1944. Japan is losing the war. Hiroo Onoda is sent to an island in the Philippines just before the American landing. The handful of soldiers that he takes with him into the jungle keep fighting, not realising the war is over.
  • Paris, 13th District
    Review preview for Paris, 13th District

    Audiard captures the fluid nature of relationships for a younger generation navigating both on and offline opportunities and, because this is French, it also features plenty of gracefully worked sexual encounters.

    Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
    Émilie meets Camille who is attracted to Nora, who crosses paths with Amber. Three girls and a boy - They're friends, sometimes lovers and often both.
  • Olga
    Review preview for Olga

    The first-time director shows an adept grip when it comes to the rhythms of her craft, letting silence or specific sounds break out at unexpected moments, including a gripping scene when all we can hear is the spring and creak of the uneven bars.

    Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
    2013. A 15-year-old gymnast is torn between Switzerland - where she is training for the European Championship in preparation for the Olympics - and Ukraine, where her mother is a journalist, reporting on Euromaidan unrest.
  • Compartment No 6
    Review preview for Compartment No 6

    The everyday feel is acute – you can virtually smell the pickle jar vinegar and raw spirit and imagine a slight stickiness on the seats as Jani-Petteri Passi’s camera captures the scene with a looseness that rocks along with the rhythm of the train.

    Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
    A young Finnish woman escapes an enigmatic love affair in Moscow by boarding a train to the arctic port of Murmansk, but is forced to share the long ride and a tiny sleeping car with a Russian miner.

A–Z of Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2021 reviews

Features

News