Karlovy Vary Film Festival Workshops Offer Launching Pad for New Filmmakers

The number of filming permits issued by New York City declined in June from previous months and fell sharply from a year ago amid a WGA strike and continued uncertainty over the status of SAG-AFTRA. The actors’ contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers expired June 30 with no deal but the two sides agreeing to extend talks through June 12 — at 11:59 pm PT.

EXCLUSIVE: Christine Vachon offered her outlook on some of the industry’s most pressing issues at a keynote masterclass session this afternoon at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

Before Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie captured the zeitgeist with their Warner Bros-backed Barbie, the popular doll was the subject of a much darker indie pic directed by Todd Haynes.

Marta Balaga Forget “Star Wars” – Ewan McGregor preferred to show his kids another one of his films. “I wasn’t there when [my daughter] Clara watched ‘Trainspotting’ for the first time. But I did used to show my kids ‘the toilet scene.’ Just for a laugh. It’s a unique situation, perhaps, for a father to be able to show his children footage of him going down the toilet,” he said at Karlovy Vary Film Festival. The trauma didn’t stop there. “I have a memory of showing Clara ‘Moulin Rouge!,’ however. I think she was 9 years old. I put it on, and then I hear this wailing and crying. I rushed in, asking if I should switch it off and she went: ‘Noooo’!”

Gene Simmons has revealed he asked former Kiss members Peter Criss and Ace Frehley to perform at the band’s last ever shows, but both refused.Kiss are in the middle of their farewell ‘End Of The Road’ tour, which they are in the UK for this week. Their last-ever shows are set to take place at Madison Square Garden in their hometown of New York on December 1 and 2.Fans hoped Criss and Frehley would make an appearance at Kiss’s last shows, but the chances of that happening appear slim, seeing as Simmons has claimed multiple offers were made and declined.“For the older fans, the ones who’ve been around for 50 years, they’re old, and some of them wanna see Ace and Peter. The newer fans never saw them and they don’t know,” Simmons told Linea Rock [via Classic Rock]“But the older fans wonder about Ace and Peter.

The raucous period drama “Firebrand” was the official opening-night film at the 57th annual Karlovy Vary International Film Festival on Friday night in the spa resort town outside Prague, but there was a lot more going on in and around the Grand Hall at the Hotel Thermal than just the on-screen battle between Alicia Vikander’s Catherine Parr and Jude Law’s King Henry VIII. It also included the presentation of awards to Vikander and Russell Crowe, the usual complement of opening-night speeches, an extended dance number that appeared to be performed on ice skates (though it wasn’t on ice but on an artificial surface that mimicked ice but could be walked on safely) and, during breaks and after the movie, complete concerts by the British band Morcheeba and by Crowe’s nine-piece band, Indoor Garden Party.

Alicia Vikander got the support of her husband Michael Fassbender while being honored at the 2023 Karlovy Vary Film Festival.

Will Tizard Contributor From indoor ice skating feats to Russell Crowe rocking the crowd, the 57th edition of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival has launched with all its unconventional charisma intact. Audiences who had to weather a downpour clearly showed no signs of dampened spirits as they cheered the fest’s opening gala dancers on ice skates, then rose to their feet to applaud guests Crowe and Alicia Vikander, both of whom accepted honors for their robust range of film work. Vikander, in accepting the award of fest president Jiri Bartoska, said she was moved to be celebrated in the Czech Republic, where her international career first took off with the 2012 shoot of “A Royal Affair.”

As tensions rise in Hollywood over an imminent update on SAG-AFTRA’s negotiations with the studios, thousands of miles east, the Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary is gearing up for its annual influx of industry insiders, curious film fans, and stars.

Marta Balaga The Karlovy Vary Film Festival, which takes place in an elegant spa resort in the Bohemian region of the Czech Republic, is set to get political during its 57th edition, but in a subtle way. “I am not sure if you can even use the word ‘subtle’ when talking about politics, but it doesn’t always have to be in your face. You can be political by showing the existential struggles of an elderly lady who gets framed by some crooks,” says artistic director Karel Och, mentioning Stephan Komandarev’s “Blaga’s Lessons,” which will vie for the Crystal Globe. While the main competition features many stories about people trying to return home or simply find their place in the world, he adds, the festival will also celebrate Iran with a separate section “Another Birth. Iranian Cinema Here and Now.” “Before our consultant Lorenzo Esposito came up with this name, we thought about ‘Iranian Underground,’ but you can be political also by being poetic. We are not telling our audience how to react. We want them to be our partners,” notes Och. Observing that satire is also making a comeback.

From Studio Ghibli leading the charge for the expansion of anime to BTS and BLACKPINK topping the music charts to TV series and films such as “Squid Games,” Parasite,” “Minari,” and “Everything Everywhere All At Once” dominating the awards circuit, the popularity of Asian culture and media has surged recently in the United States in recent years.

2023 ShortList Film Festival, chosen from award-winning shorts from across the world in the past year. This year’s films tell personal stories that captivate and inspire — including a film about two Chinese grandmothers, a film about scuba diving in the ruins of a tsunami and one film about the LAPD blowing up a neighborhood.The films – which include narrative, documentaries and animation - are available to watch and vote on from June 28 through July 12, exclusively on TheWrap. The award-winning short film that is chosen by TheWrap’s Industry Jury will be honored with the prestigious Industry Prize.

Meghan Markle may be striking out on her own.

In exciting news for movie lovers and soccer enthusiasts alike, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has announced that Taika Waititi’s soccer comedy, “Next Goal Wins”, will have its world premiere at the 48th edition of the festival.

This year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) will close with the UK premiere of British Iranian filmmaker Babak Jalali’s well-received Sundance pic Fremont.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Egyptian producer, director and mentor Marianne Khoury has been appointed artistic director of the El Gouna Film Festival in a clear sign that the prominent Arab event is aiming to make an ambitious comeback for its sixth edition following a one year hiatus.  The fest, launched in 2017 by Egyptian telecom billionaire Naguib Sawiris – whose brother Samih built the El Gouna resort in a swathe of Egypt’s desert near Hurghada, a tourist town 250 miles south of Cairo – was cancelled in 2022 after being held successfully for five years. Khoury will replace Amir Ramses who stepped down as El Gouna’s artistic director at the end of its fifth edition before the event took a one year pause. Ramses subsequently took the reins as artistic director of the Cairo Film Festival, which is Egypt’s oldest and preeminent film event.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor U.S. actor Robin Wright will be awarded the President’s Award at the 57th Karlovy Vary Film Festival’s closing ceremony. In honor of Wright, it will screen “The Princess Bride.” Wright is best known for her performance in Netflix series “House of Cards.” She earned three Golden Globe nominations and a win in 2014. She earned five Screen Actors Guild award nominations for the show, and received five consecutive Emmy nominations. In 2017, Wright played Lieutenant Joshi in “Blade Runner 2049,” and Amazon warrior General Antiope in “Justice League” and Patty Jenkins’ “Wonder Woman.” The following year, she reprised her role as Antiope in “Wonder Woman 1984.” She will be seen this Fall starring opposite Millie Bobby Brown in the fantasy film “Damsel,” and co-starring with Tom Hanks in “HERE,” directed by Robert Zemeckis.

Actress and director Robin Wright will be the featured guest at Karlovy Vary’s closing ceremony on July 8, where she will receive the festival’s Honorary President’s Award.

Amidst a disrupted industry at the start of the Covid pandemic, the hope amongst producers Christine Vachon, Pamela Koffler and David Hinojosa was simply to stay engaged. This, they accomplished by reading the best scripts at their disposal — among them Past Lives, which would mark the feature debut of playwright Celine Song.

John Bleasdale Guest Contributor The 69th Taormina Film Festival boasts an impressive lineup of Italian and world premieres as it seeks to reboot and re-establish its status as a date to watch on the festival circuit. Located in the historical Sicilian town – its visibility recently getting an unlooked for boost with the second season of HBO’s ”The White Lotus” – will be hosting a series of screenings. The outdoor Teatro Antico will provide a suitably antique background for the Italian premiere of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” with Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Antonio Banderas, John Rhys-Davies, and Mads Mikkelsen in attendance. The directorial debut of Italian artist Marco Perego, “The Absence of Eden,” will receive its world premiere. The film stars Perego’s wife Zoe Saldaña, Garrett Hedlund and Adria Arjona. The thriller tells the story of an undocumented immigrant fleeing a drug cartel whose path crosses with a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in a crisis over the moral dilemmas of his job. An unlikely alliance forms as the two endeavor to save the life of a young girl.