Movies for the Masses

Young people hold plastic cups of
beer in one hand and paper plates
with sausages in the other while they
chat about the films they just saw or
last night’s parties. This exterior shot of
the Hotel Thermal, built during the peak
of communist-era panel construction,
represents the first scene for visitors
at the Karlovy Vary International Film
Festival (KVIFF). Walk further into the
hotel, past the main hall and up the stairs,
and you find those who came with other
motives. Up-and-coming filmmakers
present new work to their cashhandling
counterparts in the industry,
who are there to scout new genius.
Directors, producers and distributors
talk shop, always surrounded by a herd
of journalists straining ears to catch the
latest on who’s doing what, where and
when.
Jarosław Szoda, an award-winning
Polish cinematographer, said that what
makes Karlovy Vary so special is that it
exists for the fans who are here to see
the films, unlike Cannes or Berlin, which
are festivals that mainly draw visitors
interested in the cinema market. KVIFF
manages to combine the best of both
worlds: It’s a festival for the people, as
well as a meeting point for filmmakers.
Backpackers and celebrities rub
shoulders as they pass each other in the
halls, only to meet later for a chat at one
of the afternoon discussions organised
as part of the festival.
At a master class on 10 July, visitors
had a chance to talk to one of the many
big stars to have visited the spa town over
the years, John Malkovich, who received
the Crystal Globe for Outstanding
Contribution to World Cinema. Around
town, they were also able to catch
glimpses of Antonio Banderas, who gave
out smiles and autographs all around and
was an indisputable favourite among the
many female film fans. He received the
Award of the Festival President. Other
notable guests included two young
talents of American independent cinema.
Scott Sanders made the audience laugh
so hard with Black Dynamite, his satirical
take on 1970s blaxploitation films, that
it seemed as though the creaky old
Thermal might actually collapse. Cary
Joji Fukunaga’s Sin Nombre was another
highly praised work.
Longer lines
More and more, crowds come here
to fill the halls and wait in line each
morning for their daily dose of movies.
To stand a chance of getting tickets for
the most popular films screened at the
festival this year, fans had to wake up
at the crack of dawn and wait for hours
in front of the halls. Soliman Fanzi, a
journalist from Cairo who has been
coming to the festival for more than
40 years, told me that in the early days,
the only hall where films were screened
was at the luxurious Grandhotel Pupp,
up the water from the Thermal. Today
there are 14 halls, ranging from the posh
atmosphere of the Municipal Theatre to
Espace Dorleans, an inflated tent.
This year, a new multipurpose hall,
the KV Arena, saw its premiere screening
with the war drama Tobruk shown in
4K, the latest advance in digital film
presentation. The hall, which has a
capacity of 1,000, will become one of
the regular venues next year. As this
new screening venue opened, rumours
spread about the fate of Hotel Thermal,
a state-owned establishment that is
reportedly severely cash-strapped and
being considered for privatisation. “As
long as the hotel is run by the state,
the festival’s location will remain the
same,” KVIFF president Jiří Bartoška told
journalists. “We don’t know whether a
private investor wouldn’t want to use it
for some other purpose.”
Festival buzz
Usually, the youth from Karlovy Vary
welcome the buzz the festival brings
as well as the various club scenes that
are built especially for the occasion. At
the Captain Morgan tent, which stands
right next to the Hotel Thermal, visitors
dance to the latest radio hits until the
early morning hours. Aeroport, a stage
in the former Česká spořitelna building,
is another popular venue. On the
final night of the festival, I struck up
a conversation with one of the young
people on the dance floor. Jirka said
he wasn’t very interested in films, but
he enjoys the clubs. He regretted that
it would all be packed up and closed
down the next day. I asked what would
be happening in the building for the
rest of the year. “Here?” he asked,looking around sadly. “There’s nothing
here.”
Not everyone is pleased with the
annual crush of visitors the festival brings.
A local pensioner, for example, grumbled
that the festival is mainly for Praguers,
who bring everything they need, hire
companies to build all the stages and
then take everything back once the show
is over. The locals, he said, don’t benefit
from the festival at all.
Still, the thousands of visitors have to
sleep and eat somewhere and they also
party it up in the numerous clubs around
town. “It’s like with the Russians,” said
Jaroslav Šafránek, a school inspector
who lives near the spa town. “Everybody
says how bad it is that they come here,
but actually they bring a lot of money to
the town.”
The festival has come a long way
since its foundation in 1946, surviving
a history that includes the turbulent
years of pro-regime screenings and
normalisation that lasted until 1989.
Some years, the festival didn’t even take
place. In 1990, the festival introduced a
series of Czechoslovak films that were
banned during the communist era. Since
Jiří Bartoška and Eva Zaoralová took over
management in 1994, the festival has
blossomed, attracting more and more
people every year until 2008, when
it sold a record 140,000 tickets. By
comparison, this year saw 131,293 single
screenings purchased, but accreditation
sales were up, at 10,277 versus 9,054
for last year. The festival has hosted such
film stars as Robert De Niro, Leonardo
DiCaprio, Sharon Stone, Roman Polanski,
Morgan Freeman, Whoopi Goldberg,
Sean Connery, Michael Douglas, Robert
Redford, Miloš Forman and Andy
García. Last year it began screening
festival trailers featuring stars awarded
the Crystal Globe for Outstanding
Contribution to World Cinema.
When the jury picked Amélie for
the Crystal Globe in 2001, for example,
and that film subsequently won over
millions of people worldwide, no doubt
remained that Karlovy Vary had taken its
rightful place among the better-known
European events such as Cannes, Berlin
and Venice. •
i n f o c us
22 prague monitor magazine | 05 2009 | 24 July - 13 August