The screening is part of the festival’s long-term project to digitally restore major works of Czechoslovak cinematography.
The 47th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival will host the world premiere of the digitally restored version of Miloš Forman’s comedy The Fireman’s Ball (Hoří, má panenko) in honour of the director’s 80th birthday.
It is part of the festival’s ongoing project, together with the Ministry of Culture and the National Film Archive, to restore major works of Czechoslovak cinematography, beginning last year with František Vláčil’s Marketa Lazarová.
In tribute to another notable talent of Czech film, actor Josef Somr, the 2012 festival will also screen The Joke (Žert) at the Karlovy Vary Municipal Theatre. A graduate of the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno, Somr, whose career has spanned six decades, is most known for his role in Jirí Menzel’s Oscar-winning drama Closely Observed Trains (1966).
As per previous editions, the festival’s industry event Works in Progress will contain various Central and Eastern European films that have yet to find international representation, providing filmmakers with their first opportunity to display their projects to potential buyers, distributors and film festival programmers.
One of the films presented at last year’s Work in Progress – Babis Makridis’ L – was selected for competition at Sundance 2012. Another, Olmo Omerzu’s A Night Too Long, was the only Czech film to be selected for the 2012 Berlinale.
Film professionals will also have the opportunity to take part in the Hollywood Panel, which will feature a representative of independent international sale, distribution and production company Film Nation Entertainment.
The festival will also feature retrospectives of Reha Erdem, the late Jean-Pierre Melville, and the late documentarian Michelangelo Antonioni, as previously reported in Screen.
KVIFF 2012 runs June 29-July 7.
No comments yet