What led you to this?
For a long time we hoped that we could make the festival classically. We said to ourselves, one year we will grind the stars and foreign guests and it will work when people come to the cinema. It will be like in the nineties, when we started at the festival, there will be crowded cinemas, there will not be a big accompanying program, but we will have a beer in front of Thermal. We will all talk about movies and it will be nice …
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At the end of April, when we normally announce the first news of a particular year and introduce our partners, we had to make a final decision. We were considering moving the festival to August. Mr. Bartoška communicated with Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, with Minister of Health Adam Vojtěch, we spoke with Minister of Culture Lubomír Zaorálek and everyone told us that in the summer there will be 100% no mass events, even if the situation develops well.
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With his wife Darina
Photo: Profimedia.cz
And that’s when you decided to move him a year?
We went to Karlovy Vary to the Great Hall of the Thermal Hotel to shoot Mr. Bartoška with an explanation that there will be no festival. And when you stand there, you realize that we have done well. That it could lead to some kind of mischief. Although everything is slowly being released now, there will definitely be some restrictions in the summer. And the reason was also that we didn’t want to cause any negatives in the city if a lot of people came there for the festival.
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In the end, you didn’t whistle the festival so completely …
Festival preparations were in full swing, the program department had selected a number of interesting titles for the festival program. Program director Karel Och is always looking forward to how people will choose the films we have chosen. And when we called off the festival, we thought we would give people at least some of those selected films. The idea of expanding the traditional post-festival show Vary in your cinema began to emerge.
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We thought it seemed like a good idea, the heavy attenuation turned into enthusiasm, new energy and began to confirm that it made sense.
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The first idea for the program came about, we came to play two movies a day, and communication with cinemas began. The number of cinemas gradually increased and we finished at ninety-six. In all these cinemas, the same films will go at the same time, at five and eight o’clock. And the cinema that belongs to the festival, everyone will recognize at first sight when they walk past it.
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(from left) Festival Production Manager Petr Lintimer, Kryštof Mucha, Program Director Karel Och, President Jiří Bartoška and moderator Marek Eben.
Photo: Petr Horník, Právo
When the films are in ninety-six cinemas, they reach more people than at the festival. This is definitely a plus.
Exactly. There are many more projections than would be in Vary. Each film will have its own screening, delegations of the festival team will go to cinemas across the country, and Mr. Bartoška will go to some of them. There are a total of sixteen films and their selection is fantastic!
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What films will be screened? The competition will definitely not take place, will it?
There will be no competition. We don’t even have new movies. These are films that have already been to various festivals. Their creators welcomed with enthusiasm that they go to cinemas, are connected with the Karlovy Vary festival and that they are still alive, because the crisis has stopped everything. As an example, I can mention the film Honey Boy, which Karel Oche and I saw at the Sundance Festival and we wanted it last year, but we couldn’t get it. I’m glad he’ll be in the show because he’s really great.
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How would you sleep in the past three months, when everything at the festival has turned upside down?
First came the distressing feeling that there would be no Vary. One thinks, for twenty-five years we have been doing nothing but a festival, and that is our benefit to society. What will we do if we can’t do what we can and do for years? But again, it took on a different dimension. The show Here Vary was a boost for us. We all enjoy it, and that’s important. And I believe that it will entertain the audience as well.
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