Christine Vachon, Geoffrey Rush Named to Karlovy Vary Film Festival Jury

Producer Christine Vachon and actor Geoffrey Rush are among the jurors who will evaluate films at the 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, an annual event in the spa town outside Prague in the Czech Republic.

The jury was announced on Tuesday, along with the lineup of the Crystal Globe and Proxima competitions as well as 10 special screenings. Almost half of the nearly three dozen films are debut features by their directors, though the filmmakers in the official selection also include Ukrainian director and activist Oleh Sentsov and British director Mark Cousins, best known for massive documentaries like the 15-hour “The Story of Film: An Odyssey.”

The Crystal Globe jury will include Vachon, an indie icon who has produced more than 100 films, including “Kids,” “Boys Don’t Cry,” “Carol” and last year’s “Past Lives” and “May December; Rush, who won the Best Actor Oscar in 1996 for “Shine”; Hungarian director Gábor Reisz; Icelandic poet and novelist Sjón; and Czech actress Eliška Křenková.

The Proxima Competition jury will consist of Sudanese filmmaker Mohamed Kordofani; producer Bianca Balbuena; Morella International Film Festival Founding Director Daniela Michel; Square Eyes sales company founder Wouter Jansen; and Czech filmmaker Adéla Komrzý.

“The 58th KVIFF official selection, closely watched core of the festival’s annual line-up comprising the Crystal Globe and Proxima competitions as well as the Special Screenings program offers a unique epicenter of genres and themes vibrating through the contemporary cinema,” KVIFF artistic director Karel Och said in a statement. “Freshly revisionist take on the esthetical canons of a period film. A balanced, caring but also provocative look on the fate of a woman in the contemporary society in any moment of her life. The immediate influence of political events on the life of an individual human being anywhere in the world. My colleagues and I discovered these themes running through our selection of films. 15 out of 32 films featured in the official selection are debuts and we could not be more excited they are accompanied by the brand new works of renowned filmmakers of the likes of Mark Cousins, Oleh Sentsov, Noaz Deshe, Antonin Peretjatko, Beata Parkanova and Burak Cevik.”

Here is the official selection of the 588 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Additional programs and honorees will be announced in the coming weeks.

Crystal Globe Competition

Ai ni ranbou / Rude to Love
Director: Yukihiro Morigaki
Japan, 2023, 105 min, World premiere

Banzo
Director: Margarida Cardoso
Portugal, France, Netherlands, 2024, 127 min, International premiere

Cì xīn qiè gŭ / Pierce
Director: Nelicia Low
Singapore, Taiwan, Poland, 2024, 109 min, World premiere

Drie dagen vis / Three Days of Fish
Director: Peter Hoogendoorn
Netherlands, Belgium, 2024, 85 min, World premiere

Elskling / Loveable
Director: Lilja Ingolfsdottir
Norway, 2024, 101 min, World premiere

Ema a smrtihlav / The Hungarian Dressmaker
Director: Iveta Grófová
Slovak Republic, Czech Republic, 2024, 129 min, World premiere

Mord / Our Lovely Pig Slaughter
Director: Adam Martinec
Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, 2024, 84 min, World premiere

Panoptikoni / Panopticon
Director: George Sikharulidze
Georgia, France, Italy, Romania, 2024, 95 min, World premiere

Proslava / Celebration
Director: Bruno Anković
Croatia, Qatar, 2024, 86 min, World premiere

A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things
Director: Mark Cousins
United Kingdom, 2024, 88 min, World premiere

Světýlka / Tiny Lights
Director: Beata Parkanová
Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, 2024, 74 min, World premiere

Xoftex
Director: Noaz Deshe
Germany, France, 2024, 95 min, World premiere

Proxima Competition

Bezvetrije / Windless
Director: Pavel G. Vesnakov
Bulgaria, Italy, 2024, 93 min, World premiere

Cabo Negro Director: Abdellah Taïa
France, Morocco, 2024, 76 min, World premiere

Clorofilla / Chlorophyll
Director: Ivana Gloria
Italy, 2023, 75 min, International premiere

Fără suflet / The Alienated
Director: Anja Kreis
Germany, Moldova, France, 2024, 95 min, World premiere

Hiçbir şey yerinde değil / Nothing in Its Place
Director: Burak Çevik
Turkey, Germany, South Korea, 2024, 76 min, International premiere

Ju wai ren / Stranger
Director: Zhengfan Yang
USA, China, Netherlands, Norway, France, 2024, 113 min, World premiere

Lapilli
Director: Paula Ďurinová
Slovak Republic, Germany, 2024, 65 min, World premiere

Od marca do mája / March to May
Director: Martin Pavol Repka
Czech Republic, 2024, 85 min, World premiere

Second Chance
Director: Subhadra Mahajan
India, 2024, 104 min, World premiere

Trans Memoria
Director: Victoria Verseau
Sweden, France, 2024, 72 min, World premiere

Tropicana Director: Omer Tobi
Israel, Canada, 2024, 82 min, World premiere

Vino la noche / Night Has Come
Director: Paolo Tizón
Peru, Spain, Mexico, 2024, 96 min, World premiere

Special Screenings

Architektura ČSSR 58–89 / Czechoslovak Architecture 58–89 Director: Jan Zajíček
Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, 2024, 126 min, World premiere

In the Land of Brothers
Director: Alireza Ghasemi, Raha Amirfazli
Iran, France, Netherlands, 2024, 95 min, European premiere

Ještě nejsem, kým chci být / I’m Not Everything I Want to Be
Director: Klára Tasovská
Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Austria, 2024, 90 min

Das Lied der Anderen – Eine Suche nach Europa / The Song of Others – A Search for Europe
Director: Vadim Jendreyko
Switzerland, 2024, 136 min, International premiere

Real
Director: Oleh Sentsov
Ukraine, Croatia, 2024, 90 min, World premiere

Ta druhá / The Other One
Director: Marie-Magdalena Kochová
Czech Republic, 2024, 85 min, World premiere

Tatabojs.doc
Director: Marek Najbrt
Czech Republic, 2024, 94 min, World premiere

Vlny / Waves
Director: Jiří Mádl
Czech Republic, 2024, 131 min, World premiere

Voyage au bord de la guerre / Journey to the Brink of War
Director: Antonin Peretjatko
France, 2024, 62 min, International premiere

Zahradníkův rok / The Gardener’s Year
Director: Jiří Havelka
Czech Republic, 2023, 104 min, World premiere