Published: April 26, 2016| 01:08 PM

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is continuing with a successful tradition from recent years and including the world premiere of another digitally restored jewel of Czech cinematography in its programme, Intimate Lighting by director Ivan Passer. The digital restoration of this film is being done in cooperation with the Czech Film Foundation and the State Cinematography Fund. The technical modification of the film was undertaken by the leading Czech studio UPP and sound studio Soundsquare, which have worked on all of the digitally restored copies of the films up to now.

The bittersweet comedy about an encounter between two former classmates and musicians is one of the most striking films of the Czechoslovak New Wave of the 1960s and film historians have ranked it as one of the ten best domestic films of all time. Ivan Passer’s 1965 feature directorial debut is also his only film to be made in Czechoslovakia, the remainder of his filmography having been produced in the USA following his emigration. Intimate Lighting attained enormous international acclaim, despite the management of Barrandov Studios of the time calling it “the most boring film ever shot”.

Ivan Passer is the holder of the 2008 Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema.

The tradition of presenting digitally restored copies of important Czech and Czechoslovak films began in 2011 when the Karlovy Vary IFF had František Vláčil’s Marketa Lazarová restored with the support of the NFA and the Ministry of Culture and held a gala screening. The film was restored under the financial auspices of KVIFF general partner ČEZ. Other titles screened at the KVIFF were then digitalised in cooperation with the Czech Film Foundation and the NFA. Gradually, premiere screenings were held for the restored copies of Miloš Forman’s The Firemen's Ball in 2012, the Moravian epic All My Good Countrymen by Vojtěch Jasný in 2013 and Menzel’s Closely Observed Trains in 2014. At last year’s KVIFF, a new, joint project between the Czech Film Foundation, Czech Television and the Karel Zeman Museum called “Cleaning Up the World of Fantasy” saw the gala presentation of the digitally restored version of Karel Zeman’s Invention for Destruction.

“I am very glad that in spite of all the difficulties and thanks in particular to our new partners we have been able to continue in the successful tradition of premieres of digitally restored films at the KVIFF. We hope the audiences will appreciate being able to see Passer’s wonderful film on the big screen after such a long time, and with the same quality that it had when it first premiered. I would like to thank all those who have made donations until now, and I am sure that thanks to the film festival others still will get involved in this fundraising event, in which ‘the nation gives unto itself’“ says Petr Šikoš, chairman of the board of the Czech Film Foundation.

The gala premiere of the digitally restored copy of Intimate Lighting will take place in the presence of director Ivan Passer on Saturday, July 2 from 2 pm in the Grand Hall of the Thermal Hotel.