Dustin Hoffman spoke up for the importance of film festivals in maintaining film as an art form, in accepting an honorary Crystal Globe at the opening night of the 60th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF).
“I want to thank Karlovy Vary film festival for serving this love of filmmaking,” said US actor Hoffman. “Festivals like this one help to support and inspire all the young actors and filmmakers who pursue this work with passion and love, and that’s what makes it truly meaningful.
“So thank you for the honour of this award, but more importantly, thank you for joining with me in caring about this art form.”
Hoffman accepted the award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema from KVIFF executive director Krystof Mucha and artistic director Karel Och. Prior to his acceptance, a clip reel showed footage from films starring the actor including All The President’s Men, Tootsie, Kramer vs Kramer and Rain Man. The footage inspired reflection in the 88-year-old Hoffman.
“Decades ago, when I worked with Robert Redford, he said to me, ‘You never think about a body of work while you’re making movies, because you’re busy building the body’,” said Hoffman. “And that’s true. The pleasure of doing what we do is being engrossed in the work itself and losing track of time.”
“If you’re very lucky, one day you’ll get to be an old man like me, and there it is, your life’s work on screen staring back at you,” said Hoffman. “It makes me very emotional, very nostalgic and most of all very grateful to have had the opportunity to do what I love decade after decade with so many brilliant people who were doing what they loved too.”
Hoffman will present a special screening of Mike Nichols’ 1967 The Graduate at the festival.
The evening also celebrated actor and filmmaker Maggie Gyllenhaal with the festival’s President’s Award. In her acceptance speech, Gyllenhaal reiterated that she plans to move away from acting towards directing, with second directorial feature The Bride! released worldwide this year by Warner Bros.
“It took me a while to realised director was a better job for me,” said Gyllenhaal, who detailed how her first trip to the Czech Republic as a 19-year-old student gave her a first motivation to become a director, after watching two films by Czech luminary Milos Forman: The Firemen’s Ball, and Loves Of A Blonde, the latter of which she greatly preferred.
“It’s like something cracked in me,” said Gyllenhaal. “I went, ‘I like that. Maybe everyone likes The Firemen’s Ball better, but I like this better. This is my taste. Then I started to go, ‘OK, I like Quentin Tarantino, and Jane Campion, and Fiddler On The Roof, and obscure Milos Forman movies.’ That voice of going ‘this is me, this is what I like’ is part of what pushed me to be a director, to express my view of the world, however strange and challenging and different.”
Other international guests in attendance included Jesse Eisenberg, repeat Karlovy Vary attendee Harvey Keitel, and Gyllenhaal’s husband Peter Sarsgaard, who was awarded at last year’s festival.
Brassy charm
The 70-minute opening ceremony began with a band playing ‘Happy Birthday’ to the festival, with sparklers shooting into the auditorium from both floor and ceiling. This segued into an eclectic medley of pop and rock classics with new Czech lyrics to celebrate the festival’s dual 60th edition and 80-year anniversary since its first event.
Performed with the brassy charm that usually marks the opening of the Czech festival, the lengthy medley featured more than 20 singers and dancers switching rapidly between each other. It included snippets from ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘Mack The Knife’, ‘La Isla Bonita’, ‘Can’t Touch This’ and ‘My Heart Will Go On’, before the entire company united on stage to close with ‘This Is Me’ from musical film The Greatest Showman.
The festival opened with the international premiere of Juan Cabral and Santiago Franco’s documentary The Match, tracking the 1986 Argentina vs England football World Cup quarter final and its wider relevance. The film debuted in the Cannes Premiere strand at Cannes Film Festival in May.
Noting its topicality with the ongoing World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico, the evening’s host Marek Eben drew the loudest laugh of the night when saying “I would like to thank our players for being loyal to the festival and leaving the World Cup on time” [the Czech Republic was among the first teams to be eliminated from this year’s competition with just one point].
Eben also recalled Jiri Bartoska, who was festival president for 31 years and is still considered to hold the role despite his death last year aged 78. “Jiri always wanted Dustin Hoffman to come,” said Eben. “He said ‘god, wouldn’t it be great’. I guess he needed to tell god himself.”
KVIFF 2026 runs until Saturday, July 11.
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