Why we support the festival

Dear Friends,

A film can do wonders. When you watch a good film, it can bring on emotions you have never experienced before while watching a good film with someone close to you, allows you to share these emotions. And if you do not have anybody like that, a film can often help you find them.

Our already twelve year long partnership with the International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary can be described in a similar way. Our relationship is successfully developing, and on behalf of CEZ Group, I can confirm that we continue to be very, very proud of our partnership this year.

Because a good partner should not only nurture the relationship, but also enrich it, we are once again bringing something extra to festival visitors. So where will you be able to pick a slice of this energy of ours?

On Saturday 29^th June this year we will be organizing the fifth annual Energy Fest at Poštovní dvůr with a single and hence even more special guest. CEZ Group will be bringing you the legendary music band Lucie in the original formation: Robert Kodym, David Koller, Michal Dvořák and P.B.CH.

Our Energy Zone offers a further place for you to take a breather and regain your strength, allowing you to revive both your body and mind plus even charge the battery in your phone if you need to.

In terms of useful ways to expend energy, we are offering something special here too. We would like to warmly invite you to Mlýnská kolonáda on Friday 5^th July, where by pedaling on the Orange bike for a minute, under the auspices of the band Lucie, you can make some good money. The CEZ Foundation will subsequently send this money to the Paraple Association and DebRA, which help children suffering from Epidermolysis bullosa.

Thank you the festival visitors, for helping us develop our partnership.

Best Regards,

Ing. Daniel Beneš, MBA
Chairman and CEO
CEZ, a. s.

Karlovy Vary is undeniably a destination worth visiting, which is all the more true during the Festival: streets lined with fans, promenades adorned with posters beckoning us to visit one screening after another. In addition to the biggest personalities in international cinema, you can run into many people whom you might otherwise never get the chance to know or meet.

For me personally, our partnership with the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is an especially intense affair, since it is here that we present, on an annual basis, the latest news related to our project RWE – the Energy of Czech Film. As in years past, we will again hold a competition with prizes, as well as autograph sessions with the actors starring in our co-productions. We will also announce certain organizational changes at our film foundation. Moviegoers will get the chance to see the films in whose creation RWE has played a part.

Whether you are among the regulars, or whether this is your first time in Karlovy Vary, may you enjoy these feast days for film buffs to the fullest!

Martin Herrmann
Chairman of the Board of Directors, CEO
RWE Česká republika a.s.

I am very glad that, for the sixth time in a row, we can contribute to the festival and that fans may enjoy the greatest Czech film event of the year. We continue to deepen the good tradition of mobile operator, Vodafone, to the International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary.

In addition to direct support for this event, we'll bring to film fans the traditional system for booking tickets via SMS, thanks to which festival-goers may avoid waiting in long queues.

Film buffs will appreciate our Festival Guide application, which will include a complete program, including details about each film screened and the festival map replete with locations of friends and interesting competitions.

All festival-goers this year can look forward to Vodafone's public beach at the center of Karlovy Vary.

This year in Karlovy Vary, Vodafone will also hold a golf tournament attended by players from Vodafone business customers, actors and filmmakers.

I look forward to seeing you in Karlovy Vary!

Muriel

Film is the most complex kind of contemporary art. It involves the visual art, the uniqueness of look, the beauty or ugliness of the viewed – but also the art of sound, music, word and speech. It expresses action, tells a story and suggests questions. Some films are pleasing like a sunny afternoon, some shatter you like a car crash. Some portray us and our world, others create worlds and stories we cannot experience elsewhere. For someone the film is mostly an entertainment, and many movies are intended to be – but a really good film, like every good story, is not only fun. You can tell a story is a good one if it has a reason to be told and it is worth listening to.

A good film is like a curative bath, relaxing or harsh; it brings catharsis, relief and new energy. After watching it, I see the world slightly different. Just as the spas of Karlovy Vary offer healing baths for the body, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival provides bath and massage for the mind and the soul. If you want to see what you’ve never seen before, if you seek an experience you would never imagine, welcome to the Festival.

Petr Kulhánek
Lord Mayor of Karlovy Vary