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Opening and Closing films at the 44th Karlovy Vary IFF

June 23, 2009, 12:00 PM

The 44th Karlovy Vary IFF will open with the international premiere of the new film The Greatest by Shana Feste.
The calm suburban life of the well-situated Brewer family is unexpectedly turned upside-down by the shocking death of the elder son Bennett. Father, mother and younger brother try to cope with the sudden loss of a loved one, each in his or her own way. Then the voluntary isolation of their parallel worlds is disrupted by Bennett’s new girlfriend, who is determined to find out more about the young man with whom she shared a brief but fervid romance. Without slipping into superficial sentimentality, debut director Shana Feste has shot an unexpectedly mature study about coping with pain. Her intense psychological investigation under the seemingly idyllic surface of a middle-class family was inspired by Robert Redford’s Oscar-winning drama Ordinary People. The superb Susan Sarandon and Pierce Brosnan as the parents meet their acting match in one of the most talented contemporary actresses, Brit Carey Mulligan.

The 44th Karlovy Vary IFF will close with The Boat That Rocked by Richard Curtis.
It’s 1966 – British pop music’s finest era – and the only official radio station, the BBC, plays just two hours of rock’n’roll a week. A group of incensed disc jockeys decide to set up a pirate radio station so they can play their favourite music 24/7. And more than half the population of Britain starts tuning in to Radio Rock, broadcasting outside British territory from a boat floating on ethereal waves in the international waters of the North Sea… After his romantic comedy Love Actually, successful British screenwriter Richard Curtis offers up another star-studded directorial delight. This story of a band of irate deejays has certain autobiographical traits as well: Curtis used to listen to night-time pirate rock broadcasts as a boy. The film stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy and Rhys Ifans.

Richard Curtis is one of Britain’s most successful screenwriters. His filmography includes the sophisticated romantic comedies Four Weddings and a Funeral (dir. Mike Newell – Oscar nomination), Notting Hill (dir. Roger Michell), Bridget Jones’s Diary (dir. Sharon Maguire) and its follow-up Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (dir. Beeban Kidron). In 2003 he debuted as a director with the romantic comedy based on his own script, Love Actually.

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