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| Terry Gilliam - to take the soothing spa waters in Karlovy Vary after his trouble and strife in Cannes Photo: UniFrance |
With less than two weeks to go before the start of the 53rd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Bohemian spa town in the Czech Republic the organisers today announced the presence of Oscar winning actor and director Tim Robbins, veteran director Terry Gilliam (for his Don Quixote opus) and actor Anna Paquin (who won an Academy Award for The Piano at the age of nine) on the burgeoning guest list.
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| Tim Robbins is to be awarded a Crystal Globe for his “outstanding contribution to world cinema.” Photo: UniFrance |
Robbins, who will receive the Festival’s Crystal Globe for his “outstanding contribution to world cinema,” won his Academy going for best supporting actor in Mystic River and was nominated as best director for Dead Man Walking. His role in Robert Altman’s The Player brought him a Golden Globe and a < a href="/festivals/cannes/">Cannes Film Festival best actor accolade. At Karlovy Vary he will present two of his films as a director - his début political mockumentary Bob Roberts and the Depression era chronicle Cradle Will Rock with John Cusack.
After the controversy that surrounded the first Festival screening of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote at Cannes in May, Terry Gilliam will look forward to a much easier transition to the Czech Republic, where his long-awaited odyssey will be eagerly welcomed. In Cannes, producer Paulo Branco tried to halt the screening over rights issues although it finally went ahead after weeks of cliff-edge suspense. The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is the story of a modern-day advertising executive named Toby (Adam Driver) who meets an elderly Spanish cobbler (Jonathan Pryce) who believes himself to be Don Quixote. Reality and fantasy become increasingly blurred.
One-time child star Anna Paquin joins director Stephen Moyer and co-star Denis O’Hare for her new film The Parting Glass, about a family in turmoil after the death of a sister. Paquin, who appears next in Martin Scorsese’s Netflix drama The Irishman, helped to produce the film, with O’Hare also credited, as the writer of the screenplay.
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| Oscar winner Anna Paquin - family turmoil in The Parting Glass Photo: Film Servis Festival Karlovy Vary |
Other luminaries lining up for the Festival include actor Rory Cochrane (best known for the TV series CSI Miami) who will present his film Hostiles, New Zealand actor Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie for Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace and actor Caleb Landry Jones with the world premiere in Competition of To The Night. French director Romain Gavras (son of Costa-Gavras) will present his comedy The World Is Yours, which stars Isabelle Adjani and Vincent Cassel among others.
Mark Cousins, whose The Eyes of Orson Welles was lauded in Cannes and features in the Edinburgh International Film Festival, joins Karlovy Vary’s grand jury alongside Croatian actor Zrinka Cvitešić, Italian producer Marta Donzelli, Czech editor Zdeněk Holý and Dutch director Nanouk Leopold.
As previously announced, Oscar winning writer, producer and director Barry Levinson will also receive a tribute Crystal Globe.
The Festival, which runs from 29 June, will close on 7 July with Sink Or Swim (Le Grand Bain), Gilles Lelouche’s French comedy about an all-male synchronised swimming troupe, not be confused with the similarly themed British film Swimming With Men by Oliver Parker, slotted as the closing gala at the EIFF on 1 July.
