The spirit of Václav Havel and Jiří Bartoška lives on at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF), and attendees of the 60th edition of the Czech fest will feel a sense of continuity and legacy, a reminder of the long history of the festival, along with innovations and updates that the team always looks to add regularly when it makes sense.
In fact, Kryštof Mucha, who joined the festival team in 1997, became its executive director in 2004 and has added the role of chairman of the board of the KVIFF Group, says for him and his colleagues, it is all about connecting the past and the future. This mix of looking back into history and paving the way into the future will also be a central theme of this year’s double anniversary edition of KVIFF, given that the fest was launched 80 years ago.
Indeed, one of the oldest film festivals in the world, Karlovy Vary was part of the so-called “first wave” of post-war European film festivals. Its first edition was held in 1946 as a non-competitive event with 13 features, including international participation, organized by the spa towns of Mariánské Lázně and Karlovy Vary during the first half of August.
Organizers highlighted earlier this year that this first edition actually took place “before the inaugural editions of the festivals in both Cannes and Locarno.” The event was at first called the Czechoslovak Film Festival, and the first edition was actually held in Mariánské Lázne; then in Mariánské Lázne and Karlovy Vary; and later solely in Karlovy Vary.
