KVIFF Distribution presents Sorrentino’s Youth

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, in association with Czech Television and the distribution company Aerofilms, has created a new distribution label, KVIFF Distribution, which will facilitate the release of attractive international film productions in Czech cinemas throughout the course of the year.

The idea behind this activity is to secure domestic distribution for original and artistically valuable distribution and television films that would have a hard time reaching audiences through standard channels. Individual businesses may actively support the domestic release, for example through marketing campaigns, providing media visibility, special premiere events and cinema placement or financial co-operation in purchasing film rights, thereby giving audiences the opportunity to see high-quality films outside of mainstream distribution.

The first such film, which will be released in cinemas on October 8, is Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth, which won the Právo Audience Award at the 50th KVIFF. Why this particular film was selected was explained by Karlovy Vary IFF president Jiří Bartoška. “This was a clear-cut case. Youth was literally an iconic film of the 50th anniversary of the Karlovy Vary festival, it received a rapturous response from audiences across generations, it won the Audience Award, which was accepted by one of the main performers, Harvey Keitel. Moreover, we have a very friendly relationship with Paolo Sorrentino and Karlovy Vary audiences regularly take exceptional interest in his films,” said Jiří Bartoška.

Director Paolo Sorrentino is one of the most interesting contemporary filmmakers and is considered by many to be a successor to the legendary Federico Fellini, with whose style of filmmaking Sorrentino’s work communicates from across half a century. For the occasion of the general-release premiere of Youth, the company Aerofilms will be showcasing Sorrentino’s other films in Prague’s Kino Aero. The programme begins on October 5 with the Oscar-winning The Great Beauty, which was the most visited European film in Kino Aero in the last five years. On October 6 the cinema will be showing Sorrentino’s breakthrough film The Consequences of Love, and lastly Il Divo, which took the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.