Crystal Globe Competition programme to feature dramas starring Trine Dyrholm and Aňa Geislerová

The Guest and Only Beautiful Things to Look At are the titles of today’s world premieres in the Crystal Globe Competition, both of which will be screened at the Grand Hall. The two films feature some of Europe’s leading actresses.

The family drama The Guest, which will be screened at 5 p.m., will be presented by a delegation including Trine Dyrholm, who returns to Karlovy Vary after eight years. This time, the Danish star, known for films such as The Celebration, The Commune, and Nico, 1988, plays an estranged mother who turns up unannounced at her young grandson’s party in the hope of mending their broken relationship. A confrontation with the past, full of unhealed wounds, creates tension, but also moments of surprising warmth.

“At first glance, our film may seem like a story about mental illness within a family. For me, however, it explores in greater depth the themes of heredity, the emotional patterns we absorb even before we can put them into words, and the responsibility we bear once we have named them. Having experienced first-hand how mental illness can shape family dynamics across generations, I am becoming increasingly aware that silence and misunderstandings, too, can be passed down through the generations. A lack of understanding can affect relationships just as much as the illness itself, creating a sense of distance and unspoken resentment that can persist across generations,” says Danish director Mads Mengel of his feature debut.

He tells the story of a family trying to hold on to one another with humour, sensitivity and hope for change. “In the film, I also want to explore the theme of forgiveness, not as an obligation, but as a process of transformation. The moment we stop seeing our parents as perfect, something changes. The moment we forgive them, something comes to fruition. And when we forgive ourselves, something opens up. This film is precisely about that opening,” he adds.

The heroine of Sunday’s second competition premiere, Only Beautiful Things to Look At, which will be screened at 8 p.m., is an elegant doctor, played by Aňa Geislerová, working at a remote district hospital in the mid-1980s. There, she delivers babies, terminates unwanted pregnancies and performs sterilisation procedures on Romani women without their fully understanding the consequences. However, her new friendship with a young and charismatic orderly makes her see things in a different light.

A drama by Ivan Ostrochovský, who also brought the documentary Igor and After to the 60th KVIFF, explores an unresolved chapter in Czechoslovak history, when the state interfered with peoples’ reproductive choices. “I never wanted to make a film about perpetrators and victims. I was more interested in the process by which even well-meaning and pragmatic intentions can turn into injustice. The moment we stop seeing the individual and start believing in abstract ideas of what is right and beneficial for society, the line between justice and injustice can become dangerously blurred,” says the Slovak filmmaker.

“I am fascinated by how easily we can justify our own beliefs and accept them as the only possible truth. I do believe, however, that people are capable of recognising their mistakes, acknowledging them and trying to put them right,” says the director, whose films have previously competed at the Berlinale and the Venice Film Festival, describing his new feature film. “I wanted to tell a story about people’s ability to question themselves, take responsibility and seek a way to make amends. Above all, however, I wanted to make a film about hope,” Ostrochovský concludes, summarising the main themes of Only Beautiful Things to Look At.