Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 

Like last year, when the packed Grand Hall clapped to the rhythms of Abba during the final festival film Mamma Mia, Karlovy Vary will end this year in a joyful, party mood. This time around it will be a comedy full of 1960s music, The Boat That Rocked, in which eight original DJs spin tunes for a popular pirate radio station. "I listened to a similar station, like most of the teenagers of the era, but we had to do it secretly because our parents thought pop music had a bad influence. I had my radio under my pillow so my parents wouldn't know," recalls Boat producer Hilary Bevan Jones, who has come to Karlovy Vary to present the movie.

The Boat That Rocked was directed by Richard Curtis, known above all for romantic comedies (e.g. Love Actually). The soundtrack, which has already gone gold in Britain, includes music from The Kinks, The Who, and Jimi Hendrix, but it lacks the Beatles. "Richard is a big fan of the Beatles and wanted to have their music in the film. But the scene involved drinking, and the Beatles we contacted didn't want to be connected with alcohol. At least we pay tribute to them in the closing titles by showing the album cover to Sgt. Pepper's," explained the producer, who has known Curtis since their “Black Adder” days. "Richard and I have quite similar musical taste, and I like virtually all the music in Boat. But I convinced him to use Otis Redding."

The movie was made on a boat, which was quite demanding. "We had to have more than one plan for each day because sometimes it would rain or the wind would blow too strong, and we’d have to shoot something else. The actors had some downtime but they didn't care. There was great team spirit on the boat. We turned on the music in the morning and everybody was in a great mood. Whoever wasn't shooting just read or talked because, of course, when you're on a boat you can’t go anywhere," Jones said of the shooting. She was accompanied to Karlovy Vary by her husband Roy Marsden, an actor famous for his role as Inspector Dalgliesh.

A former teacher and the first woman to make it to the top of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), she mainly produces television projects, her greatest success coming with the miniseries "State of Play," which this year was turned into a Hollywood movie. She was pleased by it, but was less so with the American adaptation of the series "Cracker," which Jones also produced. "In the US they made it into the series "Fitz" and they greatly changed the main character. While in England he drank, gambled, and smoke, in America he only held a cigarette without ever lighting it."

The Boat That Rocked will screen in the Grand Hall at 11:30 PM

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