Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

Latest reviews

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  Art Talent Show

  Review preview for Art Talent Show

  What makes Art Talent Show special is the way it captures human moments: a snippet of interpersonal communication in a meeting; a conversation; someone stretching off and doing a little half-hearted dance after a long day.

  Documentary about life in an art academy.
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  The Eight Mountains

  Review preview for The Eight Mountains

  In their quietly devastating manner, Groeningen and Vandermeersch examine the fluid nature of our confusion and confidence over our place in the world.

  The Eight Mountains is the story of a friendship. Of children becoming men who try to erase the footprints of their fathers, but who, through the twists and turns they take, always end up returning home.
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  Pamfir

  Review preview for Pamfir

  There’s an increasing sense of the unnatural impinging on the natural.

  Pamfir wants to be a decent family man but challenged by the circumstances he is forced to give up honest breadwinning to help his family.
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  The Dam

  Review preview for The Dam

  Built on strong imagery rather than substantive narrative.

  Sudan, near the Merowe dam. Maher works in a traditional brickyard fed by the waters of the Nile. Every evening, he secretly builds a mysterious construction made of mud.
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  My Love Affair With Marriage

  Review preview for My Love Affair With Marriage

  If there’s a single word to describe the latest film from Signe Baumane, it’s vibrancy.

  Some people spend their lives wondering why a marriage didn’t last. Signe Baumane set out to get some answers. The result is this animated film, which combines ancient mythology and contemporary neuroscience.
• 
  Harka

  Review preview for Harka

  A cri de cœur on behalf of all those from who hope has been stolen

  Ali earns a living illegally selling gasoline on the street. He doesn’t have any contact with his family, but when he receives news that his father has died, he is forced to become responsible for his two younger sisters.
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  The Five Devils

  Review preview for The Five Devils

  While it's a road well-travelled, here it's a road travelled well.

  Eight-year-old Vicky possesses a special power: a hyperacute sense of smell. She spends her days exploring this gift, and lives happily with her mother Joanne, a swimming teacher whom she adores exclusively - to the despair of her firefighter father. When her mysterious aunt Julia suddenly reappears in their lives, secrets from their past resurface both violently and magically.
• 
  Lullaby

  Review preview for Lullaby

  Though it’s nicely drawn and the performances are good, especially from Sánchez, this is all fairly familiar stuff.

  Amaia has just given birth to her first daughter. She would prefer not to give up her career as a translator, but it’s not easy to balance it with her family and looking after a young child. When her partner goes away on business for seven weeks, the young woman capitulates and goes to stay with her parents in the countryside.
• 
  Plan 75

  Review preview for Plan 75

  The film is full of sharp little observations, made in passing, which tell us about this society and the experience of people living it.

  In a near future Japan, over-75s are offered a payment to encourage them to accept an assisted death.
• 
  Joyland

  Review preview for Joyland

  It is not so much individual people who cause the problems but rather the constricting cultural circumstances that dictate everyone must play their allocated role.

  As the Ranas, a happily patriarchal joint family, yearn for the birth of a baby boy to continue the family line, their youngest son secretly joins an erotic dance theater and falls for an ambitious trans starlet. Their impossible love story illuminates the entire family's desire for a sexual rebellion.

A–Z of Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2022 reviews →

Features

• Embracing complexity
  Adam Bessa on digging into character for Harka
• Moving from fact to fiction
  Lotfy Nathan on 'shedding the skin of accuracy' for stronger storytelling in Harka
• Stitching in feelings
  Maryam Touzani on the inspiration for The Blue Caftan and its emotional fabric
• Still human
  Chie Hayakawa on age, empathy and Plan 75
• Director blown away by 'amazing' Adèle
  Léa Mysius and Exarchopoulos talk about The Five Devils
• From super-heroes to Dali
  It’s a mad world according to Smoking Makes You Cough director Quentin Dupieux
• The functional and the representational
  Marie Kreutzer on Empress Elisabeth of Austria, the biographies of Sisi, and Corsage
• Control, numbers and measurements
  Marie Kreutzer on Vicky Krieps, Camille, and the look of Corsage
• A gran plan for action
  Martika Ramirez Escobar on the evolving worlds of Leonor Will Never Die
• Bolivian snapshot
  Alejandro Loayza Grisi on working with non-professional actors, sweeping landscapes and llamas in Utama
• A flame of hope
  Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper on looking beyond collapse, and Vesper
• Del Toro: cool dude with a thick skin
  The Usual Suspects icon receives Karlovy Vary President’s Award
• Geoffrey Rush counts his blessings
  Actor adds Karlovy Vary Crystal Globe to a glittering collection
• Schreiber’s crusade for Ukraine
  Actor spearheads campaign for help at the grassroots
• A world in miniature
  Erige Sehiri reflects on the origin and themes of Under The Fig Trees
• Cronenberg straightens the record
  Director on body control, actors, “insane” US and Top Gun
• Beauty is scary.. looks are a currency
  Director Ruben Östlund on the starting point for Triangle Of Sadness
• High and low, top and bottom
  Michelangelo Frammartino on Il Buco, Renato Berta, Marco Serrecchia and Giovanna Giuliani
• Taking the lead
  Dale Dickey on stepping into the spotlight and her first onscreen romantic kiss in A Love Song
• A Love Song to Colorado
  Max Walker-Silverman on casting and quiet in his debut
• Titanic plans
  Teemu Nikki on why he was inspired to write a script from a blind man's perspective
• The Restoration of Oz
  As The Wizard of Oz returns to delight a new generation, we explore the real magic of cinema. The film you'll see in cinemas now is clean and bright; but how was this achieved?

News

• Karlovy Vary deluged with film offers
  Czech festival makes selection from 2000 submissions
• Swimming with glory at Karlovy Vary
  Top award for Iran’s Summer Of Hope amid plethora of prizes
• Fireworks herald return of Karlovy Vary
  Czech festival back in business with a fanfare and a flourish
• KVIFF rebuffs Ukrainian protest
  Karlovy Vary organisers defend inclusion of film, which is 'critical of Russian regime'
• Karlovy Vary honours for Rush and Del Toro
  Czech festival gears up for premieres and surprises