It was 1946, right after World War II, when Margarita Carmen Cansino attended the just created Karlovy Vary Film Festival. It took place in a spa city in what was then Czechoslovakia, that had been saved from the bombs and remained as beautiful as when rich families visited it by the thousands at the end of the 19th century to spend their vacations. Cansino, who used the stage name Rita Hayworth, was promoting Gilda, the film that gave her the status of an iconic star.

At that time, the event was non-competitive and only screened films from seven countries. But the presence there of the American daughter of a Spanish dancer from Castilleja de la Cuesta, near Seville, was a sign of what was going to come.

Over the following decades, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has become one of  Europe’s biggest cinematographic events, even if it has had its ups and downs. Since 1959 the festival had to take turns with the Moscow International Film Festival so the Communist Bloc would only have one big festival per year.

After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, a deep crisis affected it that almost closed the event for good in 1992. Still, KVIFF found a way to bounce back and in the almost 30 years that have passed since then, Karlovy Vary has been constantly growing as the leading cultural event in Eastern Europe where great films from the region can find a path to success and also because of the constant stream of big Hollywood stars who have followed in Hayworth’s steps: Julianne Moore, Robert Pattinson, Tim Robbins, Uma Thurman, Richard Gere, Harvey Keitel, Mel Gibson, John Travolta, Helen Mirren, Susan Sarandon, Judi Dench, Jude Law, and Antonio Banderas, among many others, are some of the illustrious visitors who have walked the red carpets in the Hotel Thermal.

In 2020 the Covid pandemic hit Karlovy Vary hard and the festival was canceled. Last November, a shortened version of it lasted only 3 days and was named “the 54th and-a-half edition.”  

Following in its pattern of always finding a way to return, the Karlovy Vary Film Festival is back in 2021 with an impressive program that includes the presence of three big names of the entertainment world. Michael Caine will receive a Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contributions To World Cinema in the opening ceremony this Thursday, August 20th and he will also be promoting his latest work, Best Sellers, directed by newcomer Lina Roessler, a  film that will be released in the US in mid-September.

Johnny Depp will be there for the closing ceremony: he will be also promoting two of his latest films, Andrew Levitas’ Minamata, and Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan, a documentary he has produced directed by Julien Temple on which he served as producer; a few days later he will be honored for his career at the San Sebastian Film Festival, where he will receive the Donostia Award. Also in the closing night, Ethan Hawke will receive the KVIFF President’s Award, an honor given to filmmakers “who have contributed to the development of contemporary world cinema”. Along with Hawke, Jan Sverák, the Czech director of Kolya, winner of the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Picture in 1997, and one of the most respected directors of local cinema will also receive the President’s Award. Sverák also directed The Elementary School, The Ride, Dark Blue World, Daddy, Three Brothers, and Barefoot.

This year the festival will host 32 premieres and will present a tribute program to Martin Scorsese‘s Film Foundation, an institution that receives regular grants from the HFPA for their restoration efforts. The goal for 2021 is to try to return to the magic communal experience of the past. Even if everyone attending the screenings will have to wear a mask, the motto of the 55th edition is “to the cinema with just a wristband”. People willing to watch films or participate in events will have to get a valid COVID-safe wristband confirming their infection-free status. Wristbands will be color-coded to indicate validity duration and will be placed directly on each visitor’s wrists.