‘We Have Never Been Modern’ Review: Intersex Awareness Brings Unexpected Urgency to a Handsome Czech Period Drama

David Benedict All the elements are there: a forgotten but fascinatingly tragic, true-life story about a world-changing medical discovery that saved the lives of millions; a large-cast, grand-scale production including dancers and onstage musicians; and Mark Rylance on stage in a no-hold-barred performance. Yet despite remarkably fierce energy from everyone involved, most particularly Rylance, the bio-drama “Dr. Semmelweis” ultimately proves more enervating than exciting. You would be forgiven for thinking that this play about a maverick, misunderstood savior in the middle of a public health crisis was a direct response to recent world events. In fact, workshops that formed the foundation of the play, the brainchild of Rylance and director Tom Morris (co-director of “War Horse”), predated the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, the events of very recent history adds considerable perspective to an already important story, dramatized here by Stephen Brown and Rylance and set in the middle of the 19th century.

“Superman: Legacy” is shaping up, and director James Gunn is feeling it.

Will Tizard Contributor In Karlovy Vary Film Festival competition entry “We Have Never Been Modern,” Czech director Matej Chlupacek takes on both the dangers of Utopian bubbles and the power of unbending faith in traditional gender concepts. The story, set in a Slovak company town built by a visionary industrialist, takes place on the eve of World War II, as a murder mystery threatens to upset the idealized community. The factory director’s wife Helena, played by Eliska Krenkova, is an aspiring doctor who is soon to give birth. But her rosy future is suddenly darkened by the discovery of the body of a newborn intersex baby in the factory’s courtyard.

Marta Balaga Photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková – no stranger to Prague’s nightlife in the 1970s and 80s, as depicted in upcoming documentary “I’m Not Everything I Want to Be” – has already earned comparisons to a certain American icon. “Libuše had this big exhibition in France in 2019 and on the radio they said: ‘She is like Nan Goldin of Czechoslovakia,’” says producer Lukáš Kokeš. Klára Tasovská directs. Recently, Goldin has been the subject of Laura Poitras’ Oscar-nominated “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.” “The very first time we pitched this project, our tutor, ‘Navalny’s’ editor Maya Daisy Hawke, said: ‘That’s funny. My husband [Joe Bini] is actually editing a film about Goldin next door,’” laughs Kokeš.

The 57th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has concluded yet another wonderful week of cinematic discoveries. Previously announced awards were given to a variety of contributors to global cinema.

Guy Lodge Film Critic The loose, lolling chapters of “The Girls Are Alright” are marked and separated by a simple visual motif: for each one, a different close-up panel of ornately illustrated Toile de Jouy fabric, rendered in various pastel shades against a calico background. The material’s distinctive period pastoral scenes, depicting gussied-up women in various states of passive repose and their corresponding noblemen, contrast pleasingly with the more modern, less dependent portrait of 21st-century femininity presented in Spanish writer-director-star Itsaso Arana’s short, sweet, winsome freshman feature. When its female characters don Toile-appropriate corsets and hoop skirts, it’s with a postmodern, literally performative sense of irony.

Guy Lodge Film Critic You have to admire the moxie of authors and filmmakers who set their science-fiction spectaculars in the very near future, essentially confronting viewers with what may seem a pretty outlandish forecast for their own lives. Those that pull it off present us with possibilities resonant enough to ponder, even when they’re too far-fetched to actively fear: So it proves in “Restore Point,” a sharp, high-shine sci-fi outing from the Czech Republic, in which earthly life after death is routine, a cellular rather than spiritual matter. Set in an unspecified (though Czech-speaking) central Europe in the year 2041, director Robert Hloz’s whopper of a calling-card debut may offer a more credibly subdued, budget-constrained visual of the mid-21st century than the lavishly built “Blade Runner 2049” — unless we’re in for a drastic design (r)evolution over the course of the 2040s — but its ideas are sky-high in concept. Marrying glossy mainstream genre aesthetics to probing, elaborately conceived speculative storytelling, this is a notably ambitious and auspiciously well-realized first feature for Hloz: the kind that appears to be flaunting his capabilities for even bigger international and Hollywood assignments.

Guy Lodge Film Critic It’s hard to watch “Empty Nets” and not think of “Luzzu,” the recent, poignant Sundance prizewinner from Malta: In both films, enterprising young men left in the lurch by a national financial crisis must resort to black-market fishing to, well, stay afloat. (All we need is a third film paddling in such forbidden waters to declare a new neo-realist trend.) In “Luzzu,” the protagonist was a lifelong fisherman passionate about his trade, while Behrooz Karamizade’s lean, engrossing, Iran-set debut centers on a handy novice merely looking to make a quick buck. In this economy, however, such differences prove immaterial. It doesn’t matter where you’re coming from, unless you’re coming from money: You’re otherwise all sinking below the surface.

Will Tizard Contributor Major international productions have been bypassing the Czech Republic for the past year — but local producers and lawmakers have a plan to win such players back, they announced at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival this week. The Czech incentives system essentially shut down in 2022 after major productions used up the $62.7 million annual cash-back rebate funds available — or so said the officials overseeing the program. The Czech Republic has offered competitive 20% rebates — with a $6.8 million cap per project — as incentives for major productions for a decade now. The system has been heralded as the key to staying competitive in a part of Europe that’s highly in demand for big-budget shoots by the likes of Amazon, Netflix and the Hollywood majors.

The spectrum of gender and sexuality may seem to be a subject firmly rooted in the political and cultural squabbles of 2023, but Czech director Matej Chlupacek has chosen to look at it through the lens of 1937 in “We Have Never Been Modern,” an affecting drama that both relies on and transcends its period setting.Set in the old Czechoslovakia (a fitting setting for a rare Czech and Slovak co-production) just prior to World War II, the film opened the Crystal Globe competition section of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival on Friday. Titled “Úsvit” in Czech but borrowing its English title from Bruno Latour’s 1991 cultural study, the film uses its prewar setting to add resonance to a portrait of a society trying to transform itself even as a large and destructive transformation looms just out of sight.

Will Tizard Contributor In Robert Hloz’s sci-fi feature debut “Restore Point,” second chances are big business. In the year 2041, anyone who has an unnatural death has the right to be brought back to life, provided they’ve dutifully created a backup of their personality called a “restore point.” Naturally, some object to the notion of artificially extending life ad infinitum, wherein the story begins to get complicated. “I wanted to make a sci-fi film since I was a little kid,” Hloz says, “but I would never guess that it will happen to be my debut. I thought maybe third, fourth film.”

“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” hits theaters, it’s time yet again for the fan debate over whether the MacGuffin and/or ending of the latest “Indiana Jones” movie is too far-fetched. This debate ignited when “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” was released in 2008, which found Harrison Ford’s rugged hero coming face-to-face with a literal alien, but how quickly fans seem to forget that this is a franchise rooted in the mystical – going all the way back to Steven Spielberg’s original, iconic “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”“Dial of Destiny” takes a big swing in its third act, but it’s a swing that is – on the whole – not much bolder or bigger than what’s been portrayed in the previous films.

Johnny Depp has just delivered an unexpected performance in the opening trailer for the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) currently underway in the Czech Republic.

Caitlyn Jenner opened up about her parenting experience with the Kardashian sisters during her marriage with ex-wife Kris Jenner. The 73-year-old former athlete revealed that she did her best raising the famous sisters following the death of their dad Robert Kardashian.The media personality shared some sweet words during Khloé Kardashian’s birthday and talked about her time with the family, after marrying Kris in 1991 and becoming a stepparent to Kim, Kourtney, Rob, and Khloé, until her divorce in 2013.“Happy birthday,“ Caitlyn wrote on Instagram.

Self-seriousness is a common trait in the world of European cinema, but the opening night of the 57thKarlovy Vary International Film Festival was a wholly playful affair, starting with the most unexpected sight of a troupe of acrobatic ice-skating showgirls spinning and whirling through fake snow and dry ice. MC Marek Eben followed in a similarly feelgood vein, with a dryly witty monologue that touched on current affairs in the Czech Republic and the wider world without getting too heavily into the politics. A “surprise” appearance by festival stalwart Jiří Bartoška, whose attendance was initially in doubt, occasioned the first standing ovation of the night.

EXCLUSIVE: As the 57th edition of the Czech Republic’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) kicks off Friday, there will be renewed interest in the central European country’s local industry, particularly the curious case surrounding its incentive program for international productions.

Khloé Kardashian may still be in touch with reality, but Kris Jenner seemingly has lost the plot during a trip to In-N-Out.

Guy Lodge Film Critic On the face of it, Grégoire is the kind of husband that makes many a woman wish hers would shape up a bit. He’s tall, strong and stylish, with a job in banking that comfortably pays the bills, and the sculpted good looks of, well, the actor Melvil Poupaud — who plays him with enough upfront charm to cover a slight chill at the edges. All that, and he dotes on his wife Blanche (Virginie Efira), insisting on a degree of togetherness that makes clear his fidelity. Those observing more closely, however, may have other concerns: Why is he constantly calling her at work? Why does she never go out with friends? That he’s a psychotic abuser isn’t played as a surprise twist in Valérie Donzelli’s nervy, finely acted domestic thriller “Just the Two of Us” — even as it dabbles in genre tropes, the film presents an all-too-unremarkable reality for many women.

Caitlyn Jenner shared an emotional post to mark Khloé Kardashian’s 39th birthday on Tuesday.

There is so much love out there for Khloé Kardashian!