Published: June 19, 2017| 11:09 AM

This year, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is proud to announce a new initiative in partnership with Variety magazine, Barrandov Studio and Czech Anglo Productions. Motivated by the fact that Central Europe serves as a reliable hub for film professionals in film production who have demonstrated excellent skill sets in various below-the-line professions, the festival wishes to highlight these talented professions and how they relate to the festival’s programme and to the region it represents.

While legendary film stars and great auteurs of global cinema are regularly celebrated, less heralded are the geniuses behind the camera. In a historic new event this year, Artisans in Focus will spotlight the brilliant individuals who create the images and sounds that form the magic of movies. Variety magazine will feature profiles of the selected professionals and Peter Caranicas, Variety’s Managing Editor will host a special panel in Karlovy Vary where our Artisans in Focus will be present.

Our panel of internationally recognized creative professionals will illuminate crafts such as cinematography, editing, and production and costume design, and will explore how artisans work with directors, producers and actors. Moderated by Variety’s Peter Caranicas, the session will also explore the future of filmmaking as the digital revolution transforms the industry. Cinema professionals and serious fans will mark their calendars for 2:30 pm on Sunday 2 July for this major new KVIFF event on the fine art of collaboration in filmmaking.

The selected Artisans in Focus who coming to the 52nd edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festivals are:

Monika Willi (born 29 May 1968 in Innsbruck) is an award-winning Austrian editor who is best known for her work with director Michael Haneke and documentarian Michael Glawogger. In 2010 she won the Filmstiftung NRW’s editing award for Haneke’s Oscar-nominated film The White Ribbon. In 2013 she was nominated for the Best Editing César Award for her work on Amour. In 2013 she won the Austrian Film Award for her editing work on Barbara Albert’s The Dead and the Living, and in 2017 she received the same award for her work on Barbara Eder’s Thank You for Bombing. The documentary film Untitled, released in 2017, is her first co-directing project. The film makes use of footage shot by Michael Glawogger, who died in 2014 while filming his journey through the Balkans, Italy, and north and west Africa.

Wojciech Staroń (born 9 December 1973 in Poland) is a renowned cinematographer and documentary director who studied at the Łódź Film School’s Faculty of Cinematography. He is known for his cinematography work on Saviour Square (dir. Joanna Kos-Krauze, Krzysztof Krauze, 2006), Vodka Factory (dir. Jerzy Śladkowski, 2010), The Prize (dir. Paula Markovitch, 2011) and Refugiado (dir. Diego Lerman, 2014). For this last film, he was nominated for the Argentinean Film Critics Association’s Best Cinematography Award. He has directed the award-winning documentaries Siberian Lesson (1998), El misionero (2001), Argentinian Lesson (2011) and Brothers (2015).

Annell Brodeur (born 6 August 1987) is costume designer and stylist who studied costume design at the University of North Texas, Denton. She worked on award-winning fiction movie Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (dir. David Lowery, 2013), the fantasy movie Pete’s Dragon (dir. David Lowery, 2016), the drama 6 Years (dir. Hannah Fidell, 2015) and A Ghost Story (dir. David Lowery, 2017), starring Casey Affleck and which will be screened at KVIFF this year.

Ondřej Nekvasil​ (born 15 July 1966 in Ostrava) is a Czech production designer who studied at the Department of Stage Design at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. He is best known for his work on the Oscar-nominated film  The Illusionist (dir. Neil Bruger, 2006), the award-winning sci-fi film Snowpiercer (dir. Bong Joon Ho, 2013) starring Tilda Swinton and Chris Evans, and Underworld: Blood Wars (dir. Anna Foerster, 2016). In 2001 he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Art Direction for his work on the TV miniseries Anne Frank.