Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 

July 2 - 10, 2010


The Empty Nest, Horizons 2009

Film Selection 2009




The Karlovy Vary IFF presents over 220 feature films from all over the world every year. Apart from the films in the special retrospectives, most of the films are screened in the Czech Republic each year for the first time, many of them in their world, international or European premiere as well. This year again, the audience will have chance to see interesting retrospectives and focuses apart from the traditional program sections.

Documentary Films in Competition

Both short and feature-length



  16 films found, displayed 1 - 15  Next Last
Film screenings:
6C6 - 8.7., 18:30, Čas Cinema
7K2 - 9.7., 13:00, Panasonic Cinema
Act of God | Act of God
Director: Jennifer Baichwal
Canada, 2009, 75 min, EP

In her new film, the creator of the renowned work Manufactured Landscapes chronicles seven stories from around the world linked by lightning strikes. Is it chance or God’s intervention? The director seeks answers from, among others, writer Paul Auster and a Cuban community that worships Shango, the god of lightning.

Film screenings:
3C6 - 5.7., 18:30, Čas Cinema
4K2 - 6.7., 13:00, Panasonic Cinema
Anas: An Indian Film | Anas: una película india
Director: Enric Miró
Spain, 2009, 118 min, IP

Anas Zaghlul from the town of Nablus is an engaging Palestinian who was once a promising athlete and an usher at a movie theater. One night, however, a shocking experience changes his life. The film’s Spanish director offers an original blend of stylized documentary and journalistic insights into the dismal reality in which his uncommon hero is trying to lead a normal life.

Who’s seeing the film:
Helena Třeštíková
Film screenings:
7C5 - 9.7., 15:30, Čas Cinema
8K4 - 10.7., 19:00, Panasonic Cinema
Anders & Harri | Anders & Harri
Director: Åsa Blanck, Johan Palmgren
Sweden, 2008, 13 min

Anders and Harri are best friends. They both like music but Anders also loves trains. One day they set out for the town of Geta where a tragic railroad accident occurred in 1918. They are so moved by the memorial site that they write a song about it. A non-sentimental film about friendship, fear, and trains.

Who’s seeing the film:
Helena Třeštíková
Film screenings:
2C5 - 4.7., 15:30, Čas Cinema
3K4 - 5.7., 19:00, Panasonic Cinema
The Diary of an Affiliate | Diario di uno “Scuro”
Director: Davide Barletti, Edoardo Cicchetti, Lorenzo Conte
Italy, 2008, 61 min, IP

The true story of Antonio Perrone, a university student from a respectable middle-class family, who in the 1980s became a founding member and boss of the mafia organization known as the Sacra Corona Unita. Today he is serving out a 49-year sentence.

Film screenings:
5C5 - 7.7., 15:30, Čas Cinema
6K4 - 8.7., 19:00, Panasonic Cinema
Land of Madness | La terre de la folie
Director: Luc Moullet
France, 2009, 90 min, IP

In his latest movie, French film legend Luc Moullet analyzes the fecund occurrence of psychological disorders and their attendant murders and suicides during the past century in a southern French region at the base of the Alps.

Film screenings:
4C5 - 6.7., 15:30, Čas Cinema
5K4 - 7.7., 19:00, Panasonic Cinema
Lessons from the Night | Lessons from the Night
Director: Adrian Francis
Australia, 2008, 9 min

During the routine execution of her job, a Bulgarian immigrant named Maia – one among the nameless hordes of male and female cleaners – muses about life and its meaning, thus allowing a look into her surprisingly diverse past. This existential film about cleaning is also a tribute to the thousands of anonymous individuals carrying out serious work for laughable pay.

Who’s seeing the film:
Helena Třeštíková
Film screenings:
2C6 - 4.7., 18:30, Čas Cinema
3K2 - 5.7., 13:00, Panasonic Cinema
Muezzin | Muezzin
Director: Sebastian Brameshuber
Austria, 2009, 80 min, WP

Since the time of the Prophet Mohammed, faithful Muslims have heeded the muezzin’s call to prayer five times a day. Each year in Turkey the best of these compete, and their powerful expressivity proves that muezzins are a special kind of artist. This Austrian film follows the dramatic progress of the competition and investigates the phenomenon of individuality within Islamic culture.

Who’s seeing the film:
Helena Třeštíková
Film screenings:
4C5 - 6.7., 15:30, Čas Cinema
5K4 - 7.7., 19:00, Panasonic Cinema
The Old Fool Who Moved the Mountains | Yugong Yishan
Director: Joanna Vasquez Arong
China, Thailand, Philippines, 2008, 30 min, EP

Vasquez Joanna Arong (Neo-Lounge screened at the 42nd KV IFF) takes the viewer from a Chinese fable through Mao’s Little Red Book and on to an independent music bar in Beijing. This emotionally compelling movie takes a closer look at contemporary China as seen by peculiar “old fools,” whose perseverance can change the world.

Who’s seeing the film:
Helena Třeštíková
Film screenings:
5C6 - 7.7., 18:30, Čas Cinema
6K2 - 8.7., 13:00, Panasonic Cinema
Osadné | Osadné
Director: Marko Škop
Slovak Republic, Czech Republic, 2009, 65 min, WP

In this cheerful “document-toury movie” by Other Worlds creator Marko Škop, an Orthodox priest, a long-serving mayor, and a Ruthenian activist set out on a journey from the remote eastern Slovak village of Osadné for the European Parliament in Brussels.

Film screenings:
7C5 - 9.7., 15:30, Čas Cinema
8K4 - 10.7., 19:00, Panasonic Cinema
Side By Side | Side om side
Director: Christian Sønderby Jepsen
Denmark, 2008, 30 min

A debut filmmaker decides to get at the truth of the causes of an age-old grudge between his father and elderly Mr. Frost, two men who have long had adjoining backyards. This staged documentary features compelling visual compositions and the disarmingly dry humor of the distinctive inhabitants of western Jutland.

Film screenings:
3C5 - 5.7., 15:30, Čas Cinema
4K4 - 6.7., 19:00, Panasonic Cinema
The Sound of Insects - Record of a Mummy | The Sound of Insects - Record of a Mummy
Director: Peter Liechti
Switzerland, 2009, 88 min

The actual diary entries of a man who decided to commit suicide by starving himself to death, elaborated into a literary form by Japanese writer Masahiko Shimada. Drawing on the novel, this evocative cinematic reconstruction of events provides a hypnotic record of the feelings of someone who voluntarily forfeited his life.

Film screenings:
6C5 - 8.7., 15:30, Čas Cinema
7K4 - 9.7., 19:00, Panasonic Cinema
Those Who Remain | Los que se quedan
Director: Juan Carlos Rulfo, Carlos Hagerman
Mexico, 2008, 96 min

What does it mean to live in a Mexican village where half of the population has left to find work in the USA? What do parents go through who haven’t seen their children in years, or children who grow up without their fathers? Juan Carlos Rulfo (winner at the 2006 KV IFF with In the Pit) and Carlos Hagerman present a decades-old problem from the perspective of those left behind.

Who’s seeing the film:
Helena Třeštíková
Film screenings:
4C6 - 6.7., 18:30, Čas Cinema
5K2 - 7.7., 13:00, Panasonic Cinema
Thriller in Manila | Thriller in Manila
Director: John Dower
United Kingdom, 2008, 90 min

Gripping reconstruction of one of the most dramatic sporting events of all time, the 1975 rematch between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier for the heavyweight boxing title. Archive footage and testimonies from those who witnessed the “fight to the death” illustrate not only the drama in the ring, but also US sociopolitical realities of the 1960s and 1970s.

Film screenings:
4C5 - 6.7., 15:30, Čas Cinema
5K4 - 7.7., 19:00, Panasonic Cinema
Till It Hurts | Do bolu
Director: Marcin Koszałka
Poland, 2008, 25 min

A 53-year-old psychiatrist still lives at home with his mom. After a long period of emotional abstinence, he meets Ewa and his enthusiasm over his new love evokes a hysterical reaction from his imperious mother. An intimately-drawn tragicomedy by a great talent of Polish documentary filmmaking, part of a documentary series that follows up on Kieślowski’s Decalogue.

Who’s seeing the film:
Helena Třeštíková
Film screenings:
7C5 - 9.7., 15:30, Čas Cinema
8K4 - 10.7., 19:00, Panasonic Cinema
Wagah | Wagah
Director: Supriyo Sen
Germany, India, Pakistan, 2009, 14 min

Until 1947, India and Pakistan were part of British India. The peculiar “festival” of symbolically closing the border, which takes place each evening at Wagah, the lone border crossing, connects for a symbolic moment two nations that, after decades, still feel like part of a unified region.

  16 films found, displayed 1 - 15  Next Last

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