Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 

41st Karlovy Vary IFF

June 30 - July 8, 2006

Grand jury

The Grand Jury who will be presenting the Grand Prix - Crystal Globe this year will comprise distinguished figures from the international film world:

President of the Grand Jury: Goran Paskaljević

Goran Paskaljević, one of the most distinguished directors from the former Yugoslavia, is a member of the so-called “Prague school” of FAMU graduates. He became known for his short documentaries, but it was his feature films which classed him among leading European directors, whose style, themes and tragicomic aura bore traces of the influence of the Czech New Wave. He received international recognition particularly for his films Beach Guard in Winter (1976), Special Treatment (1980 – Golden Globe nomination), Twilight Time (1983 – Main Prize at the Chicago IFF), The Elusive Summer of ‘68 (1984), Guardian Angel (1987), Time of Miracles (1989), The Powder Keg (1998 – FIPRESCI prize at the Venice IFF), How Harry Became a Tree (2001) and Midwinter Night’s Dream (2004 – Grand Jury Prize at the San Sebastian IFF). His new film The Optimists will be premiered in the autumn of 2006.

Bent Hamer

Bent Hamer, Norwegian director, screenwriter, producer and owner of the production company BulBul Film, studied film science and literature at Stockholm university and attended Stockholm’s Academy of Film and Photography. He initially made short documentaries and short features. His feature-length films Eggs (1995), Water Easy Reach (En dag til i solen, 1998), Kitchen Stories (Salmer fra kjøkkenet, 2003) and Factotum (2005) were a success at international festivals (Cannes, Toronto, Valladolid) and won a series of domestic and international awards. Three of them were screened at the Karlovy Vary IFF (1996, 2003 and 2005).

Leila Hatami

Leila Hatami, one of the most distinctive actresses in Iran, is the daughter of famous director Ali Hatami and actress Zari Khoshkam. She first appeared on the big screen at the age of eleven in the film Kamalolmolk (1984). She made her professional acting debut playing a blind Turkish princess in the film Del shodegan (1992). After studying in Switzerland she played the title role in Dariush Mehrjui’s film Leila (1996), which was very well received. Her greatest international success to date, for which she was awarded at the Montreal IFF, was her leading role in the film by Alireza Raisian The Deserted Station (Istgah-e matrouk, 2002). Other films in which she has appeared include The Mix (2000), Low Altitude (Ertefae Past, 2002) Salad-e fasl (2005), Hokm (2005), Portrait of a Lady Faraway (2005, screened in competition last year at the KV IFF) and Shaere zobale-ha (2005).

Coleman Hough

Coleman Hough, American writer, poet, screenwriter and performance artist, wrote the screenplays for two films by Steven Soderbergh, Full Frontal (2002) and Bubble (2005), and also for a film produced by HBO about the life of former Washington Post publisher, Katharine Graham. More recent works include an adaptation of the novel by Kevin Canty Into the Great Wide Open. She became celebrated in New York for her performances of her own monologues The Ugly Sister, Natural Disaster and She’s No Expert. The Los Angeles-based Theatre of NOTE staged her plays Angel and Mr. Charm, At Night and Alphabet Soup.

Laurence Kardish

Canadian Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator, Department of Film and Media at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, is a leading film specialist. He has assumed various positions at MoMA since 1968. As a curator, he has put together exhibitions and retrospectives on a number of film personalities, such as Isabelle Huppert, R. W. Fassbinder, Luis Buñuel, Jean-Luc Godard, Alfred Hitchcock, Michael Snow and Agnès Varda. Laurence Kardish is also invited to sit on various international juries, he publishes regularly in specialist magazines and he received the Berlinale Camera Award at the Berlin IFF in 2006 in recognition of programming excellence at MoMA.

Juliusz Machulski

Juliusz Machulski, a respected Polish film director and producer, comes from a famous acting family. He studied direction at the Lodź Theatre and Film School (1978). He began his career as an actor, but he became internationally known as a director of successful and popular film comedies (he has made sixteen to date), in which he showed his ability to skilfully combine various popular genres and themes. He gained greatest recognition for his comedies Vabank (1981), Sexmission (1983), Vabank II (1984), King Size (1987), Déjà vu (1989), V.I.P. (1991), Girl Guide (1995), Kiler (1997), Two Kilers (1999), Superproduction (2002) and Vinci (2004). He gradually broadened his film horizons to include production and teaching. The film My Nikifor (2004), which he produced, won four main prizes at last year’s Karlovy Vary IFF. Machulski is President of the Polish Film Academy.

Karel Roden

Karel Roden, a leading Czech actor from the middle generation who has also succeeded in establishing himself overseas, hails from an acting family. After graduating from DAMU (1985) he undertook a series of theatre engagements. He began working in film during the first half of the 1980s and made his name playing psychologically demanding and complex characters in films by young directors such as Time of the Servants (1989), Corpus delicti (1991), Don Gio (1992), The Sandcastle (1994), King Ubu (1996), The Melancholic Chicken (1999), Victims and Murderers (2000), Parallel Worlds (2001), Wild Flowers (2000) and Vaterland – A Hunter’s Diary (2004). In recent years he has often been cast in American films, for the most part playing villains alongside the likes of Robert De Niro (15 Minutes, 2001), Wesley Snipes (Blade II, 2002) or Ron Perlman (Hellboy, 2004).