Seven renowned filmmakers to introduce their films

The Oscar-nominated screenwriter and director Nicole Holofcener will attend KVIFF to introduce three films from her award-winning career, while Michel Franco, Juho Kuosmanen, Sergei Loznitsa, Rúnar Rúnarsson, Daniele Luchetti, and Ti West will present their latest films to Karlovy Vary audiences.

Nicole Holofcener, one of the most eminent voices of American independent cinema of the ´90ies and noughties has written and directed seven feature-length films, whose qualities have been appreciated by critics and audiences alike. Holofcener’s measured mix of observational comedy, understated social commentary, and female character studies are not as well-known in Central and Eastern Europe as in the United States, where they have found a home at Sundance in particular. One example is the gently scathing yet charming comedy of manners Please Give (2010), starring Oliver Platt and Holofcener’s regular collaborator Catherine Keener. The romantic comedy Enough Said (2013), a bittersweet meditation on the anxieties of middle age, brought together American comedy icon Julia-Louis Dreyfus and the incomparable James Gandolfini (sadly, in one of his final roles) under Holofcener’s empathetic direction. The latest film by this chronicler of American middle-class life, You Hurt My Feelings (2023), proves that even the story of a long marriage unexpectedly beset by a major crisis can be told in a sensitively humorous way.

The Mexico-born world citizen Michel Franco, a director, screenwriter, editor, and producer whose films have won awards at the Cannes and Venice, will travel to Karlovy Vary to present the Czech premiere of his 2023 drama Memory. Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard, whose performance earned him the Volpi Cup at last year’s Venice Film Festival, shine in this intense romantic drama characterized by a subtle yet profound understanding of humanity in its purest form.

Finnish star director Juho Kuosmanen returns to Karlovy Vary with his Silent Trilogy, three short films that present a playful and humorous celebration of people on the margins of society. Kuosmanen previously demonstrated his love for the history of cinema in the festival gems The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki and Compartment No. 6.

The work of Sergei Loznitsa, who has visited the Karlovy Vary festival with his films with almost iron-clad regularity since the turn of the millennium, is an uncompromising aesthetic and political “bridge” between East and West. In his observational documentary The Invasion, he recounts the actions of the people who have resisted oppression on a daily basis since the Russian invasion began.

Iceland’s Rúnar Rúnarsson will be on hand to present When the Light Breaks, his emotionally complex study of dealing with sudden loss and pain, which opened the Un Certain Regard section at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. 

Returning to Karlovy Vary this year is legend of Italian cinema Daniele Luchetti with his drama Trust. For this film, Luchetti once again turned to his long-time collaborator Elio Germano, to play the lead role. This extremely successful actor-director duo first met while working on My Brother is an Only Child (2006).

The work of master of unconventional independent horror Ti West has gained a cult following over the years. West will be in Karlovy Vary in person to introduce MaXXXine, the final instalment in his X trilogy, produced by A24.