This Year’s KVIFF Celebrates Two Anniversaries

​In 2026, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) commemorates two important milestones: 80 years since the first festival, and the festival’s 60th edition. 

As the second-oldest film festival in the world, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival was part of the so-called “first wave” of postwar European film festivals. 

The first edition of the Karlovy Vary film festival was held eighty years ago as a non-competition event with international participation. Organized by the spa towns of Mariánské Lázně and Karlovy Vary from 1 to 15 August 1946, it took place before the inaugural editions of the festivals in both Cannes and Locarno and even predates the first postwar edition of the world’s oldest film festival, the Venice Film Festival (founded 1932, renewed 1946).

The festival’s first edition featured thirteen films, with premiere screenings in Mariánské Lázně and repeat showings the following day in Karlovy Vary. It began presenting awards in 1948, and in 1950 the festival moved permanently to Karlovy Vary. The earliest editions had to contend with political realities that significantly intervened in its programming decisions. One key figure who determined the festival’s character for several decades was the journalist, educator, and internationally respected expert Antonín Martin Brousil (1907–1986). Besides contributing to the festival’s founding, he chaired its main juries for many years and essentially served as its unofficial programming director. 

The disproportion between the two anniversaries (60 and 80) is the result of several different factors. After not being held in 1953 and 1955, by political edict the festival subsequently took place only every other year. Starting in 1959 the festival, which two years earlier had been recognized as a category “A” festival by the FIAPF (a category that also includes Cannes and Venice), had to share this prestigious label and alternate years with the newly founded Moscow International Film Festival.

Over the course of its long existence, the Karlovy Vary festival has experienced a number of turbulent changes. After spending the 1950s in search of a meaningful identity, the festival truly spread its wings in the following decade, when it hosted numerous representatives of international cinema, only to suffer two decades of Normalization – a period full of restrictions that influenced both the selection of films and the awarding of prizes.

Only with the easing of outside pressures in the second half of the 1980s did more substantial foreign films and interesting guests gradually return to the festival. The first post-Velvet Revolution edition in 1990 featured participation by a number of exiled or banned filmmakers and the screening of titles that had previously been censored. Instead of the festival’s expected flowering, however, there followed several years of uncertainty and deliberations as to the event’s purpose, and the festival was on the verge of being cancelled. Thanks to the initiative of the forward-thinking filmmaker, artist, and Ministry of Culture official Igor Ševčík, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Foundation was established in order to take the festival’s organization out of the hands of the state, and the festival’s organizing team came to be headed by Jiří Bartoška as president and Eva Zaoralová as artistic director.

It is no exaggeration to say that these changes began an extraordinary period during which the festival was transformed into an event meeting modern and international standards. Among other things, the illogical alternating of festival years with Moscow came to an end, and since 1994 the festival has been held annually in Karlovy Vary. The festival also successfully fought off attempts to move it to Prague, and after two years of stiff competition from the Prague Golem festival, it reasserted its status as the country’s most important cinematic event. The festival’s ongoing evolution was paused just once due to the international Covid pandemic, and so 2026 marks the festival’s 60th anniversary edition.

The festival team that Jiří Bartoška and Eva Zaoralová built up over the years has continued to successfully meet these two important figures’ vision even after their passing. The festival’s identity has long been shaped by such people as moderator Marek Eben, designers of the festival’s opening and closing ceremonies Michal and Šimon Caban, graphic designer Aleš Najbrt and Studio Najbrt, photographer Tono Stano, PR coordinator Uljana Donátová, and dozens of others who make up the event’s tight-knit organizational structure.

Since last year, the entire team has been headed by Executive Director Kryštof Mucha, Artistic Director Karel Och, and Head of Production Petr Lintimer. With the entry of strategic partner Rockaway Art several years ago, the festival has gained a stable foundation for its future growth.