kviff.com
News
Festival Guide
  • Tickets and Festival Pass
  • Accommodations
  • Transportation
  • Festival cinemas
  • No Barriers project
  • Kids at the festival
  • Festival Shop
Program
  • Catalogue of films
  • Accompanying programme
  • Archive of films
  • Audience award
  • KVIFF Talks
  • Film Entry
Film Industry
  • Industry accreditation
  • Film Industry at KVIFF
  • Industry Days Programme
  • KVIFF Eastern Promises
  • KVIFF Talents
Press
  • Press accreditation
  • Press Service
  • For download
  • Press releases
  • Photogallery
  • Videogallery
About the festival
  • Festival description
  • Programme sections
  • Awards
  • History
  • We support non-profits
  • Photogallery
  • Partners
  • Why We Support the Festival
  • Contacts
CZ
Sign in
Film Archive

Holy Motors

Horizons 2012 / Holy Motors / France, Germany 2012

In a film that according to many should have won the Palme d’Or this year at Cannes, Denis Lavant plays mysterious Mr. Oscar who, during the course of the day, takes on various identities in a bizarre show captured by an unseen camera. Bad boy of French film Leos Carax triumphs after a 13-year break with a delightful and provocative spectacle that betrays a sense of awe for Paris, for classic films, and perhaps even for Kylie Minogue’s vocals.

Holy Motors Holy Motors

Synopsis

After a thirteen-year lull Leos Carax, the enfant terrible of French film, is triumphally back. In a film that many had tipped for this year’s Palme d’Or at Cannes, the director’s faithful partner Denis Lavant embodies the mysterious Monsieur Oscar, who in the course of a single day assumes a whole range of identities in a disturbing "performance” in front of invisible cameras. "What makes you carry on?” asks his boss, played by Michel Piccoli. "The beauty of the act,” replies Lavant’s chameleonesque hero in what could be a paraphrase of Carax’s own creative creed, which he has shared with us in a mere five films over nearly thirty years. His characteristically anguished romantic vision is combined with a provocative playfulness and a veneration of some of the more bizarre milestones of cinema (among them Georges Franju’s Les yeux sans visage). Woven into this bewitching spectacle is a love of Paris (watching helplessly as the legendary Samaritaine department store goes into terminal decline), the vanishing world of the limousine, and the songs of Kylie Minogue.

About the film

115 min / Color, DCP

Director Leos Carax / Screenplay Leos Carax / Dir. of Photography Caroline Champetier, Yves Cape / Editor Nelly Quettier / Producer Martine Marignac / Production Pierre Grise Productions / Cast Denis Lavant, Edith Scob, Eva Mendes, Kylie Minogue, Michel Piccoli / Contact GoodFellas, Aerofilms / Distributor Aerofilms

About the director

Leos Carax

Leos Carax (b. 1960, Suresnes, France) joined the editorial team of Cahiers du cinéma at age 20. Shortly afterward he shot his short film debut Strangulations Blues (1980). It took another four years for his first feature, Boy Meets Girl (1984), which marks the beginning of his collaboration with actor Denis Lavant and cameraman Jean-Yves Escoffier. Then followed a somber romance with touches of sci-fi and mystery, Bad Blood (Mauvais sang, 1986), which brought him the Alfred Bauer Prize for innovation at the Berlinale. While shooting The Lovers on the Bridge (Les amants du Pont-Neuf, 1991), Carax’s vision slammed into reality; although a cult movie today, its creation brought on an eight-year hiatus that the director ended in 1999 with his controversial adaptation of Melville’s novel Pierre: or, The Ambiguities entitled Pola X. In 2008 he contributed one of three segments to a film inspired by the Japanese capital, simply entitled Tokyo!.

Contacts

GoodFellas
65 rue de Dunkerque, 75009, Paris
France
Phone: +33 143 132 164
E-mail: [email protected]

Aerofilms
Milady Horákové 383/79, 170 00, Praha 7
Czech Republic
Phone: +420 224 947 566
E-mail: [email protected]

Guests

Ivo Andrle
Distributor

Zuzana Pudilová
Distributor

Other partners
Newsletter

First-hand brews throughout the year.
Be among the first to learn about upcoming events and other news. We only send the newsletter when we have something to say.

Follow us on the web:

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
is part of the KVIFF Group family, which covers other projects as well:

© 2025 KVIFF GROUP

Rules for Visitors / Website visitors privacy policy / GTC / Personal Data Protection / Rules for Claim / Rules and Regulations / Contacts