This year’s Out of the Past section, celebrating films from KVIFF’s history, also features Kes, which won the festival’s Grand Prix for Ken Loach in 1970. Although this intense and emotional drama about a boy’s difficult coming of age in a mining town remains one of the finest British films to this day, its victory at the KVIFF was controversial at a time when normalisation was taking hold in the Czech Republic.
“The Soviet delegation requested a meeting with the jury. The jury, led by Karel Zeman with the support of other members such as Krzysztof Zanussi, threatened to resign if anyone tried to influence its decision – and the winner remained. “The Soviets then left the hall when the award was announced,” recalled film historian Tomáš Hubáček at the start of his talk.
Ken Loach also addressed audience at the 60th KVIFF in a recorded video message. “I have nothing but the fondest memories of Karlovy Vary. I think I first visited the city in 1967, and I was struck by its beauty and charm,” the director revealed in the video message, as he had competed three times at the Karlovy Vary festival at the start of his career.
“In the 1960s, Czech cinema was particularly important to us. What we liked was the apparent modesty, yet at the same time their warmth and delight in human interaction, the authenticity of the acting, and the camera’s role as an observer. The camera observed with kindness, compassion and empathy, with understanding and a smile – sometimes a sad one – quietly capturing the characters’ decisions and dilemmas... It was a pure joy to watch them. I think that approach to making films had a huge influence on me,” said the director, who has won two Palme d’Or awards and a Crystal Globe for his outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema.
According to him, Kes pays tribute, in its own way, to Czech cinema of the 1960s. “We were filming in August 1968, and when we heard that Soviet tanks had entered Prague, we knew that films like that would never be made again. At that time, we tried to celebrate the achievements of Czech cinema through celluloid and sound,” said the 90-year-old British filmmaking legend, who has visited KVIFF several times, most recently in 2017, explaining the connection between his second feature film and Czech cinema.
