Karlovy Vary Film Festival Celebrates New Gen of Czech and Slovak Filmmakers: ‘The World Is Waiting’

“I’m sorry for you, and I’m sorry for me,” Viggo Mortensen quipped to an Italian journalist Sunday morning before a press conference at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival.

Rafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor Zeki Demirkubuz’s “Life” was awarded the Golden Bee for Best Feature Film at the second edition of the Mediterrane Film Festival. Mahdi Fleifel’s Un Certain Regard breakout “To a Land Unknown” took the Jury’s Choice prize, while Brandt Andersen’s “The Stranger’s Case” won Golden Bees for Best Director for Andersen and Best Acting for Yasmine Al-Massri.

American filmmaker Nicole Holofcener is relaxed. Her legs are crossed in the yoga pose and she reclines into a large armchair with a glass of white wine perched on the side. 

Naman Ramachandran “Second Chance,” the directorial debut of Indian filmmaker Subhadra Mahajan, has been picked up for international sales by Thailand-based Diversion ahead of its world premiere at the 2024 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The film is set to debut on July 2 in the festival’s Proxima Competition section. The film tells the story of Nia, a young woman from the city who returns to her family home in the western Himalayas after a decade-long absence.

EXCLUSIVE: The Gotham Group has signed Singaporean writer and director Nelicia Low ahead of the world premiere of her debut feature Pierce at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

Naman Ramachandran The 32nd Raindance Film Festival (June 19-28) has revealed its jury award winners, reflecting a renewed focus on emerging filmmakers. Korean thriller “Sleep,” directed by Jason Yu and starring Lee Sun-kyun and Jung Yu-mi, took home the Discovery Award for best debut feature. The film marks Lee’s final role before his passing.

Ben Croll Roaring towards its 23rd edition, the Neuchatel Intl. Fantastic Film Festival (NIFFF) built its reputation as a haven for outré fare, pulling in a reliable (and renewable) youth crowd eager for wild thrills and hard-to-source Asian titles, while becoming a fixture on the horror festival circuit as a lakeside home-away-from-home for a stable of filmmakers who return year and again.

EXCLUSIVE: Gregg Sulkin (Runaways), William Miller (The 100) and Melina Matthews (Warrior Nun) have signed on for roles in the spider thriller Arachnid marking the debut feature from Badlands, the new indie genre label from Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee’s Thunder Road, longtime Screen Gems exec Scott Strauss, and Andrew Schwartzberg and Jon Shiffman’s Renegade Capital, on which we were first to report.

EXCLUSIVE: Comedy Dynamics on Wednesday announced its acquisition of Tony Rock: Rock the World, the debut special from comedian Tony Rock, for release later this year.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor “Fingernails,” starring Jesse Buckley, Riz Ahmed and Jeremy Allen White, is to close the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. The tender and idiosyncratic romantic drama, co-produced by Cate Blanchett, is the sophomore outing from director Christos Nikou, who made a splash with his debut “Apples.” The film centers on the Love Institute, a scientific organization that tests the mutual compatibility of people who have decided to embark on life’s journey together.

As Georgia O’Keeffe was to the landscape of New Mexico, artist Chiura Obata was to the grandeur of Yosemite.

Brent Simon As festivals have increasingly endeavored to showcase more diverse talent, benchmarks of inclusivity occasionally run the risk of feeling like a dutiful checklist. The Bentonville Film Festival, though, has celebrated — and elevated — underrepresented voices since its inception.

Naman Ramachandran Disney’s “Inside Out 2” added a further £7.7 million ($9.8 million) in its second weekend at the U.K. and Ireland box office, remaining in pole position, according to numbers from Comscore. The smash hit sequel now has a running tally of £23.2 million.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The Locarno Film Festival will honor multiple Oscar winner Ben Burtt — the sound designer, editor and voice actor behind the ‘Star Wars‘ and ‘Indiana Jones’ franchises — with its lifetime achievement award dedicated to creative pioneers. The prominent Swiss fest celebrating international indie cinema will be feting Burtt, best known for voicing Wall-E and creating Darth Vader’s mechanical breathing, with its Vision Award Ticinomoda. 1977’s “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope” was one of the first films he worked on.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Actor-director Viggo Mortensen, actor Clive Owen and actor-director Daniel Brühl will be honored at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Central and Eastern Europe’s leading movie event, which will open with Mortensen’s “The Dead Don’t Hurt.” The festival also revealed Wednesday that director-producer Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter-director Nicole Holofcener will attend the event. Mortensen, Owen and Brühl will each receive the Festival President’s Award.

Editor’s Note: Journalist David Blum might have forever coined The Brat Pack era, but it was Carl Kurlander who provided the reason the infamous New York article got written. St. Elmo’s Fire was a script Kurlander wrote with director Joel Schumacher, inspired by events in his life. Now an academic, Kurlander has written several guest columns for Deadline including a 35th anniversary remembrance of St. Elmo’s Fire. Why is he tapping again into those memories? He just watched Brats, the Hulu documentary that premiered at Tribeca, directed by and starring Andrew McCarthy. He was part of the St. Elmo’s Fire ensemble that felt maligned by a mag article published the week before the film was released and became a surprise hit. Here, Kurlander supplies some great dish — did you know Demi Moore‘s drug demons almost forced Joel Schumacher to replace her with the young singer Madonna? Or that Georgetown shunned the movie for immoral activity but OK’d The Exorcist because despite the vile goings on involving a possessed child, evil didn’t win? A little of that stuff would have helped McCarthy’s docu, which gets tedious as he attempts to expunge demons, even as cohorts like Moore, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez and Ally Sheedy seem to be humoring him on camera. After all, that film launched fine futures for them, even if the moniker stung. McCarthy paints journo Blum as a villain, but in fairness, The Brat Pack was a far more clever coinage than putting “gate” on the end of every scandal since Watergate. Blum also unwittingly etched into permanent Hollywood history the memory of those actors when they were young and gorgeous. Who wants to be forgotten?

The Munich International Film Festival will screen 152 films from 53 countries during its 41st edition, which runs from June 28 to July 6. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Coralie Fargeat’s Demi Moore-starring feminist body horror film “The Substance” has been set as the closing night title for the New Zealand International Film Festival. The picture is one of 16 which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last month selected for the NZIFF which is now under the artistic leadership of Paolo Bertolin.

A true crime podcast on the history of the casting couch.All the hits and misses for summer 2024News, interviews and reviewsAnouk Aimée, the French actress known for her elegance and cool sophistication in films including Claude Lelouch's "A Man and a Woman," died on Tuesday. She was 92.The company is expected to make the announcement official on Monday.Brad Pitt’s upcoming feature about Formula 1 racing has gotten a release date from Apple Original Films.

An Apple Original Films title is heading to the big screen for the sixth time with the June 27, 2025 release of Joseph Kosinski‘s Formula 1 movie starring Brad Pitt. Warner Bros. has won the rights to handle both domestic and overseas. This follows Paramount releasing Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon ($157M WW), Universal with Argylle ($96.2M WW), and Sony with Napoleon ($221.3M WW), Fly Me to the Moon (July 12), and Wolfs (Sept. 20).