The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival took its traditional black-tie opening night celebrations to the max on Friday to celebrate the double anniversary of its 60th edition in the 80th year of the Czech fest with a room full of stars, music and dance.
Dustin Hoffman (The Graduate, Kramer vs. Kramer, Rain Man) was honored with KVIFF‘s Crystal Globe for outstanding artistic contributions to world cinema, while Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Bride!, The Lost Daughter, Secretary, The Honourable Woman) received the festival’s President’s Award. And both charmed the adoring crowd with their speeches.
Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network, A Real Pain, When You Finish Saving the World) and Harvey Keitel (Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Reservoir Dogs) were also among the big names in the room after walking the expanded red carpet of the festival in the Czech spa town.
Kryštof Mucha, the executive director of the world’s second-oldest film fest, and KVIFF artistic director Karel Och were, of course, on hand to hand over the honors during the big kickoff celebration, emceed by Czech TV host Marek Eben.
Hoffman took to the stage as he was showered in a thunderous standing ovation by the capacity crowd in the legendary Grand Hall of the brutalist Hotel Thermal. “I am honored and humbled by this award,” the soon-to-be-89-year-old started off saying. “Decades ago, when I worked with Robert Redford when he was a young child of 65, Redford said to me: ‘You never think about a body of work while you’re making movies, because you’re busy building the body.’ And that’s true. The pleasure of doing what we do is being engrossed in the work itself and losing track of time.”
