On Friday, June 30, one of Europe’s oldest A-class film festivals – the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival – starts in the Czech Republic, Latvia is represented in the film industry section of the festival by the upcoming debut feature film project “The Boy Who Saw in the Dark” by the new director Paula Ķesters.
The Karlovy Vary Festival is one of the most important events of the cinema life in Central and Eastern Europe, it obtained A-class status already in 1956, but its Crystal Globe awarded since 1948. 200 films from all over the world are selected for the Karlovy Vary program every year, the audience buys more than 140,000 movie tickets, and the industry section is visited by about 1,300 influential film professionals every year.
Karlovy Vary Film Industry Section KVIFF Eastern Promises divided into three blocks, each of which focuses on emerging films at different stages of project development. For the program Works in Development – Feature Launch selects the first films of new directors, which are being prepared for filming and seeks co-production partners; this year, among eight projects from different countries (Iceland, Greece, Czech Republic, Spain, Cyprus, etc.), the feature film project of director Paula ķesters was also chosen The boy who saw in the dark (producer Kristians Alhimionoks, studio Centaur Films).
The scriptwriter of the future film is Rasa Bugavičute-Pēceher literary work about 13-year-old Jēkab, who grows up taking care of his blind parents, is known in Latvia as a book published in 2019 and also as a National Theater performance that won the Night of Players Grand Prize, moreover, the story has already attracted attention both in Latvia and the Baltics, and even more widely. Rasa Bugavičiute-Pēce comments: “The boy who saw in the dark unexpectedly, there is a story that freely crosses the borders of countries and nationalities. I have just received news that the book will be published in Poland as well, and this gives me confidence as we prepare for the Karlovy Vary Festival – we are talking about what everyone can understand through the special. Our task now is to follow it with full responsibility, continuing to learn and realizing that the Latvian language and Latvian stories only expand the boundaries of possibilities.”
Also director Pauls Kesteris emphasizes that this story is “humanly universal”, moreover, the events of the film begin to take place in the 90s of the 20th century in Cēsis and the director is reminded of his own childhood in Valmiera. “Working on the film script together with Ras and Christian, it feels like we are classmates. In this story, each of us can put feelings from our childhood, and I hope that it will be unifying not only for us, but also for the viewer.”
Produced by Christian Alhimionok reveals that work on the film script is currently in the final stage, the development of the project has already been supported in the competition of the National Film Center, and now the structure of film co-production partners is being formed. Participation in the Karlovy Vary program Works in Development provides for the presentation of the project to an international audience of professionals (July 3) and then opportunities for separate negotiations with potential partners (July 4).
The European Foundation is also active in the industry section of Karlovy Vary Creative Europe MEDIA Latvian branch. On Monday, July 3, the representative of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CNECT) Martin Dawson will present the market research The European Media Industry Outlook: What Do Audiences Want? conclusions about audience habits when consuming content on online platforms. In the evening of the same day, 11 RE MEDIA offices – from Austria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary and three offices from Germany (Berlin-Brandenburg, Munich and North Rhine-Westphalia) organize a networking and cooperation promotion event for film distributors.
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2023-06-29 08:11:18
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