The grand prize in the main competition of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival this Saturday evening went to the Bulgarian-German film Blažiny lekce directed by Stephan Komandarev.
The director received the Crystal Globe from the festival president Jiří Bartoška for the social drama aimed at a vulnerable generation of seniors. The grand prize of the main competition is associated with a reward of 25,000 dollars, equivalent to about 600,000 crowns, and belongs equally to the director and the producer.
The special jury prize with a reward of 15,000 dollars, which is about 360,000 crowns, goes to the German-Iranian film Empty Net. Behrouz Karamízadí’s feature debut is a realistic drama from contemporary Iran. It depicts the fight for the right to love. In the main competition, the jury assessed 11 pictures.
The director award went to Babak Jalali for the American film Fremont. The latter is the story of an Afghan immigrant in the US who is struggling in a Chinese fortune cookie factory. Ela Skorčevová’s performance as Blaga in the award-winning film Blažiny lekce earned her the award for best actress. The award for male performance went to Herbert Nordrum for his role in the Swedish-Norwegian-French film Hypnosis.
Special recognition goes to the German-Lebanese documentary Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano directed by Cyril Aris, showing the difficulties of filmmakers filming in contemporary Lebanon after the explosion in the port of Beirut. The audience award went to the French historical film In the Name of Honor, directed by Vincent Perez.
In the Proxima competition, the South Korean film Conception, about the unplanned pregnancy of a young writer, takes home the Grand Prize. The Special Jury Prize of the Proxima Competition went to Guras, an Indian-Nepalese mystical odyssey about the pain of loss and the differences in grieving between children and adults.
Special recognition of the jury in this competition goes to the Czech disaster film Brutální vedro, directed by Albert Hospodářský. Next to the main competition, Proxima is the second festival competition section. It is a space for filmmakers waiting to be discovered and for renowned authors looking for new definitions of their work. Unlike its predecessor, the competition East of the West, Proxima is open to the creation of the whole world.
Actresses Daniela Kolářová and Robin Wright received the festival president’s award from Jiří Bartoška on Saturday evening. Kolářová, who accepted the award to a long standing ovation from the audience, presented the film Ball Lightning from 1978 at the festival. In it, she plays one of the main roles alongside Josef Abrhám. The American actress Robin Wright then personally introduced the parody fairy-tale fantasy from 1987 The Princess Bride, in which she portrayed a princess.
Video: They kiss and hug me, says the interpreter of the movie stars
“It was always very pleasant to work with the movie stars who came to Karlovy Vary,” said interpreter Helena Koutná in the Spotlight program. | Video: Jakub Zuzánek
2023-07-08 18:00:14
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