KVIFF’s non-competition Special Screenings section includes Caravan, Zuzana Kirchnerová’s feature debut, which this year was the first Czech film in more than three decades to be shown in a competition section at the Cannes Film Festival (Un certain regard).
The section’s other films are five world premieres and three European premieres, among them the first feature-length Czech film about the country’s Vietnamese community, Summer School, 2001, a light and humorous tale of generational conflict and more. The Czech Film Project presents interviews with around thirty Czech or Czech-based filmmakers from all generations as they answer the question “What makes Czech film Czech?” Peter Bebjak presents a cinematic version of the dramatic life of the pop singer Karol Duchoň (“the Czechoslovak Tom Jones”), and director Katarína Gramatová’s debut Promise, I’ll Be Fine looks at the sometimes unhappy reality of contemporary Slovakia.
Great Britain’s Dragonfly, featuring the stellar Brenda Blethyn and Andrea Riseborough, tells the story of a friendship between two forgotten people on the margins of society, while the epic family chronicle All That’s Left of You recounts seven decades in the life of one uprooted Palestinian family. A charming mixture of genres, Tehran Another View is a vibrant portrait of the Iranian capital and its inhabitants, who lose none of their élan even in the face of a difficult political situation. And in the urban fairy tale A Second Life, audiences are treated to an ode to friendship amidst an almost documentary portrait of Paris in the grips of the Summer Olympics.
More information about the films is available here.
