Regular meetings have been organized with directors, actors, and other filmmakers who present their work as part of the festival program. During the ten years of KVIFF Talks existence large number of filmmakers have shared their experiences with the audience; such as directors Oliver Stone, Todd Solondz, Michel Gondry, William Friedkin or Charlie Kaufman or actors Harvey Keitel, John Malkovich, Christopher Lee and Michael Shannon or film editor Thelma Schoonmaker.

Unless indicated otherwise, the meetings take place in English, are not translated, and do not require a ticket or accreditation.

30/6/2018

KVIFF TALK with Oscar-winning actor and director Tim Robbins

Congress Hall, 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

This year’s festival will present a Crystal Globe for Outstanding Contribution to World Cinema to actor, director, screenwriter, producer and musician Tim Robbins, who won an Oscar for best supporting actor for his performance in Mystic River and who was nominated for a best director Oscar for Dead Man Walking. After appearing in several smaller film and television roles, Robbins gained more attention thanks to his part in sports film Bull Durham. A decisive moment in his acting career was Robbins’ appearance in the main role in Robert Altman’s The Player which earned him a Golden Globe and the best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival. Robbins than showed that he was a multifaceted auteur by filming his directorial debut Bob Roberts according to his own screenplay and several years later Dead Man Walking earned him an Oscar nomination for best director. Unforgettable are his appearances in films Short Cuts, Prêt-à-Porter, Shawshank Redemption, High Fidelity, Human Nature and off course in Mystic River.

Recently Robbins has been seen in Marjorie Prime and HBOs The Brink and Here And Now.​

Session will be hosted by American journalist Gregory Ellwood

1/7/2018

KVIFF TALK with Danish actress Trine Dyrholm

Vodafone Lounge - Hotel Thermal, 12:00 PM - 01:30 PM

Trine Dyrholm is one of the most distinctive Danish actors today. Besides film and television, she has also appeared on stage as a theatre actress and a singer. Festival audiences will know her from Thomas Vinterberg’s The Celebration, the comedy In China They Eat Dogs, and the Oscar-nominated historical drama A Royal Affair. In 2016, she was awarded the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlinale for her role in Vinterberg’s The Commune.She is coming to Karlovy Vary to present the musical biopic Nico, 1988.

Hosted by Danish festival programmer Louise H. Johansen

2/7/2018

KVIFF TALK on Baltic poetic documentaries

Cinema A, 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM

The retrospective Reflections of Time: Baltic Poetic Documentaries offers a rare chance to see key documentary films from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia by several generations of filmmakers. “Baltic poetic documentary cinema created an independent world, free from soviet ideology, lie and propaganda. It was a declaration of inner freedom. The black-and-white world of poetic documentary films was full of colours. Sadness was full of joy. And joy was touched by deep existential sadness. These films reminded us about the very core of cinema – to film and to enjoy the beauty of the leaves moving in the wind.” Audrius Stonys

As part of the KVIFF TALK, we will be screening short films from the 1960s and ’70s as well as films from the ’90s that were inspired by and further developed this tradition. The discussions will be attended by all the filmmakers: Latvian director of photography Ivars Seleckis, Estonian directors Mark Soosaar and Andres Sööt, Lithuanian director Audrius Stonys and Latvian director Laila Pakalniņa.

The talk will be hosted by Latvian journalist and film historian Zane Balčus.

KVIFF TALK with directors Richard Linklater, David Zellner and Andrew Bujalski on the subject of the Austin Film Society

Congress Hall, 01:30 PM - 03:00 PM

One of the program sections of this year’s festival pays homage to the Austin Film Society (AFS), a non-profit film organization founded in 1985 that today is one of the most important institutions of its kind in the USA. AFS started out as a film club that attracted student, artists and hardcore cinephiles, and soon became an institution promoting cinematic culture and productions among the growing Texas film community. ​I’m proud to say that the film society was spawned by a loose coalition of freaks – asocial punks of various ages who wanted to live cinema and believed the only world that really mattered was the one that existed when the lights went down and the projector rolled.​ Richard Linklater, 2005 

The section Made in Texas: An Homage to the Austin Film Society will show nine feature-length films and two blocks of short films. Coming to Karlovy Vary to discuss the role and successes of this unique organization are its founder and artistic director Richard Linklater (Slacker, 1991), who will be joined by David Zellner (Kid-Thing, 2015) and Andrew Bujalski (Computer Chess, 2013), whose films are also being screened as part of our homage to AFS.

Debate will be hosted by American journalist Peter Debruge.

3/7/2018

KVIFF TALK on the phenomenon of skateboarding in Czechoslovakia

Cinema A, 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM

“Stick to the asphalt. Zipping through space. Everything in motion. Skateboard!” Director, author, journalist and DJ Šimon Šafránek recently completed feature-length documentary portrait of the birth of skateboarding in communist Czechoslovakia. King Skate will have its world premiere at KVIFF, and its protagonists – cult figures of the era’s skateboard scene such as Míra Bartoš,Petr Kotting, Petr Pletánek, Petr Karlíček, Vojta Kotek – will appear at the KVIFF TALK to share their “stories of broken bones, unbroken friendships and wild rides towards freedom amidst communism.”

The discussion will be moderated by Šimon Šafránek.

The debate will be held in Czech with possibility of translation into English for a small group.

4/7/2018

KVIFF TALK with author and protagonists of the film Touch Me Not

Congress Hall, 01:00 PM - 04:30 PM

Winner of the Golden Bear at Berlinale 2018, Touch Me Not by Adina Pintilie is a film-research about intimacy, an essential aspect of our humanity and yet a topic we find so difficult to talk about, surrounded by so many taboos and blockages. Touch Me Not aims to open up a space for self-reflection and transformation, where we are challenged to question our preconceived ideas about intimacy. Through the controversy it raises, it reaches beyond the cinema becoming more than a film – a consciousness-raising experience. An essential contribution to this is its key protagonists’ active direct dialogue with the audience on the sensitive topics the film tackles, such as personal boundaries, intimacy and disability, gender fluidity, beauty and bodies different than the norm, inner freedom. KVIFF Talk offers you the rare chance to meet them in an open debate held right after the screening at 3 pm.  More information could be found here „TOUCH ME NOT press book"

The debate will be hosted by film director Adina Pintilie. 

Admission to the screening only with a valid festival ticket.

KVIFF TALK on the documentary film Bufo Alvarius – The Underground Secret

Cinema A, 05:30 PM - 08:15 PM

A gripping audiovisual adventure and radical report on 5-MeO-DMT, the strongest psychedelic known to man – and on the Sonoran desert toad. The fascinating tale of a group of psychonauts who set out to South America in order to experience Bufo Alvarius, illustrated through personal stories from the doyen of transpersonal psychology Stanislav Grof and neo-shaman Octavio Rettig, whose work with the “frog substance” has changed the lives of thousands of people around the world. The filmmakers’ original goal to film a documentary reportage evolved into an intense cinematic meditation on the nature of consciousness and being.

www.bufoalvarius.com

The screening (90 min.) will be followed by a discussion attended by director Filip Záruba, dramaturge and producer Václav Dejčmar, clinical psychologist and psychotherapist Michael Vančura and the film’s expert advisor Ondřej Bahník.

Hosted by Ivana “IM Cyber” Česnek 

Film will be shown in Czech version with English translations, the debate will be in Czech language.​

5/7/2018

KVIFF TALK with Academy Award-winning director Barry Levinson

Congress Hall, 01:30 PM - 03:00 PM

At this year’s festival, screenwriter-producer-director Barry Levinson, who won an Academy Award for Rain Man, will accept the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema. In his writing and directing capacity Barry Levinson deftly combines personal stories with an often satirical look at society, and his movies have fundamentally influenced numerous young filmmakers. Barry Levinson established himself as a writer of successful television shows. With his onetime wife he then wrote the movie script for Norman Jewison’s courtroom drama …and justice for all, which brought them an Oscar nomination. He debuted as a director with the comedy-drama Diner, receiving his second Oscar nomination for the script. Subsequent titles confirmed his reputation with critics and audiences: The Natural, Good Morning, Vietnam, Avalon, Bugsy, Wag the Dog, Sleepers. Levinson produces the majority of his movies and has backed a number of ambitious project by other directors.

The debate will be hosted by British journalist Neil Young.

KVIFF TALK with actor Jaromír Hanzlík

Karlovy Vary Municipal Theatre, 04:00 PM - 06:20 PM

This year, the KVIFF President’s Award for Artistic Contribution to Czech Cinema will go to actor Jaromír Hanzlík, who turned 70 this year and who has been a constant presence in Czech theatre, film and television for many decades. One of his earliest film roles was as the young Michal in Antonín Máša and Jan Čuřík’s 1965 Searching, which will be screened at this year’s festival. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Jaromír Hanzlík.

The debated will be hosted by Czech journalist Veronika Bednářová.

Admission to the screening only with a valid festival ticket. The debate will be held in Czech without translation.