Emerg­ing film­mak­ers step into the spot­light at the 2022 Karlovy Vary Film Festival

The spa city of Karlovy Vary in the Czech Repub­lic, with its roman­tic Bohemi­an archi­tec­ture and hot ther­mal springs, is a strik­ing place to host a film fes­ti­val. Its ornate, pas­tel-paint­ed hotels set up in the hills are said to have inspired Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel; across the riv­er, the bru­tal­ist Hotel Ther­mal tow­ers over the water with con­crete harsh­ness. Fes­ti­val atten­dees – or per­haps rev­ellers, giv­en the ani­mat­ed dai­ly par­ty scene that keeps the neigh­bour­hood awake past 2am – flock from all over the coun­try to ​“take the waters” and see this year’s films, a large pro­por­tion of them stu­dents who come with no pre­ten­sions to this lav­ish place. When all the seats are gone, they find their spot glee­ful­ly on the stair­wells and floor of the cinemas.

Every screen­ing began with one of the festival’s own plucky short films shot in black and white: minute-long tales where pre­vi­ous win­ners poke fun at the val­ue of their Crys­tal Globe stat­uettes. Those which fea­tured estab­lished heroes of Czech cin­e­ma were met with unde­ni­able warmth from the audi­ence. Some, how­ev­er, were soured by the inclu­sion of dis­graced for­mer awardees Mel Gib­son and Casey Affleck (last year the fes­ti­val also chose to hon­our John­ny Depp with a ded­i­cat­ed tribute).

Thank­ful­ly more pro­gres­sive think­ing was found in the pro­gram­ming, and across both the main Crys­tal Globe com­pe­ti­tion and the new­ly instat­ed world­wide Prox­i­ma com­pe­ti­tion (which replaces the for­mer East of the West strand wel­com­ing projects from Cen­tral and East­ern Europe), nar­ra­tives that cen­tred on the free­dom of youth reigned supreme. This year’s Grand Prix win­ner, Sum­mer with Hope, was one such offer­ing – at times an enig­mat­ic por­trait of a young swim­mer in Iran hop­ing to make it big that patient­ly unrav­els its strik­ing plot as com­mu­ni­ty sus­pi­cions grow around the boy and his new coach. The sec­ond fea­ture of Sadaf For­oughi, whose film Ava pre­miered at the 2017 Toron­to Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val, the film’s win marks yet anoth­er A‑list fes­ti­val prize tak­en home by a woman film­mak­er in the last two years.

Oth­er women-led high­lights includ­ed the Geor­gian film A Room of My Own, co-writ­ten by lead actor Taki Mum­ladze and detail­ing the lives of mil­len­ni­al room­mates in con­tem­po­rary Tbil­isi. Mum­ladze and co-star Mari­am Khun­dadze shared the festival’s act­ing prize for their com­pelling inti­ma­cy and audac­i­ty as new friends Tina and Megi, fight­ing their way out of the con­straints of the misog­y­ny and vio­lence of the world around them. There is a gut­sy col­lec­tive resolve to the film, a no-bud­get lock­down project made between friends, and a youth­ful polit­i­cal spir­it — a strong addi­tion to the recent spate of films from Geor­gia emerg­ing on an inter­na­tion­al stage.

Two films from Spain offered play­ful insights into love and romance from mil­len­ni­al per­spec­tives, the debut fea­ture Ramona by Andrea Bag­ney and the lat­est from the pro­lif­ic Madrid-based Jonás True­ba titled You Have to Come and See It. The for­mer, shot in black and white and explor­ing a young woman’s doubt in her rela­tion­ship when anoth­er man falls in love with her, felt rem­i­nis­cent of Amalia Ulman’s Sun­dance hit El Plan­e­ta with its spiky humour ear­ly on before mel­low­ing into some­thing clos­er to the emo­tion­al pangs of The Worst Per­son in the World. Its sen­si­bil­i­ty bor­dered on twee, per­haps, but its light touch and stylised aes­thet­ic added less sac­cha­rine charm. Trueba’s film, sim­i­lar­ly stylised in idyl­lic Span­ish apart­ments and sunkissed fields, rev­els in sim­plic­i­ty as its cen­tral cou­ples, one still liv­ing in the city, the oth­er hav­ing moved to the coun­try­side, have con­ver­sa­tions about lit­er­a­ture, or trains, or cook­ing, and leave oth­er things unsaid in a harm­less yet point­ed way. At just over an hour, the film was at once a per­fect snap­shot and some­thing that you want­ed to wile away the day in a lit­tle more, a sip of cin­e­mat­ic tonic.

My final film of the fes­ti­val left the most curi­ous mark. The third fea­ture from Québé­cois direc­tor Eman­nuel Tardif, In Broad Day­light, basked in oblique­ness as it explored the decay­ing dynam­ics of a fam­i­ly who have hid­den their teenage daughter’s baby from the out­side world. Con­fined to their stun­ning yet fly-swarmed house, each slow­ly los­es their sense of self, and of real­i­ty. Tardif and DP François Herquel’s images are beau­ti­ful, the sym­me­try of the frame and colour palette a reflec­tion on the faux-per­fec­tion of this trou­bled fam­i­ly who sink fur­ther into a kind of abstract hor­ror when the daugh­ter final­ly flees to find her child’s father. The film is an immer­sive, eerie slow burn that defies cat­e­gori­sa­tion in the most refresh­ing way and anoth­er sign of the remark­able accom­plish­ment pos­si­ble with an extreme­ly low-bud­get — after the screen­ing, Tardif explained how he and his crew had all pooled togeth­er their pan­dem­ic sup­port cheques from the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment to fund the project.

It was encour­ag­ing to see these films, all by emerg­ing or ear­ly career stage direc­tors, giv­en a plat­form in a festival’s main com­pe­ti­tion strands rather than side­lined to a ded­i­cat­ed pro­gramme for new film­mak­ers or sim­i­lar. With its stu­dent-led audi­ences, too, the Karlovy Vary Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val seemed com­mit­ted to offer­ing a space for youth engage­ment and new voic­es – a wel­come atti­tude that will hope­ful­ly pre­vail over the need to keep pay­ing unnec­es­sary trib­ute to var­i­ous prob­lem­at­ic men who hard­ly need the exposure.