‘Twin Peaks’ Episode, David Lynch Short, Restored Wim Wenders Film Join Karlovy Vary Fest Lineup

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) on Monday added a David Lynch short and an episode of his iconic series Twin Peaks to its Franz Kafka retrospective and unveiled the program of its Out of the Past section, featuring classic, cult, rare and “unfairly overlooked” films, screened in their original or restored versions.

Among the highlights are restored versions of Wim Wenders’ 1984 neo-Western drama Paris, Texas and Two English Girls, François Truffaut’s 1971 period drama about a love triangle.

The Wenders film is part of a three-film program presented by Alexandre O. Philippe, the creator of documentary essays about the history of cinema, offering perspectives on the American landscape in cinema. He will also present his 2021 documentary The Taking (2021), which explores American mythology through the socio-philosophical dimensions of the American landscape.

Also part of the Out of the Past program is Let’s Get Lost, Bruce Weber’s documentary about the final years of jazz legend Chet Baker. Plus, “this year’s ‘chapter’ in Karlovy Vary’s ongoing series dedicated to the king of American independent cinema, John Cassavetes, will show his final writer/director feature, Love Streams (1984), in which he and his lifelong partner and muse Gena Rowlands portray an unusual pair of siblings,” organizers said.

KVIFF, whose 58th edition runs June 28-July 6, also unveiled more additional titles to complete the program of its Franz Kafka retrospective, which will pay tribute to one of the Czech Republic’s most famous sons in celebration of the centenary of Kafka’s death. 

The retrospective, dubbed “The Wish to Be a Red Indian: Kafka and Cinema,” will show 13 feature films, four medium-length films and five shorts. The “surrealistic short film The Grandmother, which Lynch made in 1970 with financial support from the American Film Institute, as well as the third episode of
the third season of the cult series Twin Peaks, which most intensely reflects the admiration
of one peculiar genius for another,” are now part of the lineup, organizers said Monday.

Among the newly announced films is also British actor Peter Capaldi’s directorial debut, Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life. “This playful and original short film, depicting Kafka struggling with writer’s block, won the Academy Award for best live-action short film,” organizers highlighted.

Check out the complete program for the two KVIFF 2024 sections below.

Out of the Past
Two English Girls (dir. François Truffaut)
François Truffaut, My Life, a Screenplay (dir. David Teboul)
The Taking (dir. Alexandre O. Philippe)
Fort Apache (dir. John Ford)
Paris, Texas (dir. Wim Wenders)
Twentynine Palms (dir. Bruno Dumont)
Let’s Get Lost (dir. Bruce Weber)
Love Streams (dir. John Cassavetes)
Actress (dir. Theodora Remundová)
Murdering the Devil (dir. Ester Krumbachová)
The Mystery of the Carpathian Castle (dir. Oldřich Lipský)

Franz Kafka Retrospective
The Grandmother (dir. David Lynch, USA 1970, 34 min.)
Twin Peaks: A Limited Event Series (dir. David Lynch, USA 2017, 60 min.)
Class Relations (Klassenverhältnisse, dir. Jean-Marie Straub+Danièle Huillet,
Germany/France 1984, 127 min.)
France Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life (dir. Peter Capaldi, United Kingdom 1993, 23 min.)
K (dir. Lorenza Mazzetti, United Kingdom 1954, 29 min.)
Kafka (dir. Steven Soderbergh, USA/France 1991, 98 min.)
Mr. Kneff (dir. Steven Soderbergh, USA 2021, 78 min.)
The Trial (dir. Orson Welles, France/Italy/West Germany 1962, 116 min.)
Joseph Kilian (Postava k podpírání, dir. Pavel Juráček, Czechoslovakia 1963, 38 min.)
The Money Order (Mandabi, dir. Ousmane Sembene, Senegal/France 1968, 105 min.)
The Castle (Das Schloß, dir. Rudolf Noelte, West Germany 1968, 88 min.)
The Audience (L’Udienza, dir. Marco Ferreri, Italy/France 1971, 112 min.)
Metamorphosis (Die Verwandlung, dir. Jan Němec, West Germany 1975, 55 min.)
The Tenant (Le Locataire, dir. Roman Polanski, France 1976, 126 min.)
After Hours (dir. Martin Scorsese, USA 1985, 97 min.)
Fellini’s Intervista (Intervista, dir. Federico Fellini, Italy 1987, 105 min.)
Tetsuo (dir. Shin’ya Tsukamoto, Japan 1989, 67 min.)
Artist of Fasting (Danjiki Geinin, dir. Masao Adachi, Japan/South Korea 2015, 105 min.)
Kafka (dir. Zbigniew Rybczyński, France 1992, 52 min.)
Amerika (dir. Vladimir Michálek, Czech Republic 1994, 90 min.)
Franz Kafka’s a Country Doctor (Kafka Inaka Isha, dir. Koji Yamamura, Japan 2007, 21
min.)
The Tomb of Kafka (Le Tombeau de Kafka, dir. Jean-Claude Rousseau, France 2022, 14
min.)