Category A classifies the
Karlovy Vary IFF into the group of prestigious festivals with the status of a “non-specialised international competition of full-length feature films”, such as the IFF in Cannes, Berlin, Venice or Tokyo. It is one of the few festivals of this category that is accessible to the wider public.
The festival annually presents more than 200 new films from all over the world. Some films are even projected exclusively and are not distributed any further. Czech and foreign actors and directors of great importance regularly visit this international festival. In previous years, Karlovy Vary has welcomed such famous names as the actors Jude Law, Danny De Vito, Andy Garcia, Robert de Niro, Robert Redford, Harvey Keitel and John Malkovich, actresses Sharon Stone, Renée Zellweger, Ornella Muti, Keira Knightley and directors Miloš Forman, Nikita Michalkov, Jiří Menzel, Věra Chytilová and many others. One of this year’s stars will be the famous British Oscar-winning film and stage actress Judi Dench, who will receive the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema.
The biggest event of the festival is the main competition for full-length feature films which only presents the films that were made in the previous season and those that have not been shown in the competition section of any other festival of Category A. Apart from the official competition, the Documentary Films in Competition and the East of the West Competition Section, audiences can look forward to seeing traditional informative sections and current thematic retrospectives.
This year’s 46th Karlovy Vary IFF will be once again be rich in film premieres and world-famous personalities. Apart from the films presented within the competition section, you will have a chance to see new films introduced at the Cannes IFF as well as films awarded at other film festivals or films characterised by unusual artistic interpretation in the non-competition sections. There will also be a show of 10 European films chosen by the critics from Variety magazine, organised with the support of the European Film Promotion, or the representative selection of Czech films made in 2010-2011, and much more.
The rich film programme of the festival will be accompanied by various events, such as parties, concerts, workshops, etc. You can find a detailed list of films and events of the Karlovy Vary IFF
here.