Separately, KVIFF will premiere a restoration of Czechoslovak director František Vláčil’s Western “Shadows of a Hot Summer.” When it originally premiered at the 21st KVIFF, it was awarded the Crystal Globe for Best Film. Starring Juraj Kukura, Marta Vančurová, Gustav Valach, Jiří Bartoška — the film is set two years after the Second World War, featuring a gang of Banderites who come across a peaceful hamlet with violent intentions.
Teaming with Variety, the festival will also honor casting director Francine Maisler. Her work can be seen on more than seventy feature films, most notably “The Revenant” and “Birdman,” “Milk,” “As Good As It Gets,” “The Tree of Life,” “12 Years a Slave” and “Blade Runner 2049.” In 2024 alone, her projects include “Dune: Part Two,” “Bikeriders,” “Challengers,” “Civil War,” “Joker: Folie à Deux,” and “Mufasa.” In 2022, she won a Primetime Emmy award for “Succession.” She’s also been honored with the Casting Society of America’s Artios Awards fifteen times.
“We are glad to have begun a new tradition at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, where every year we honor one important representative from the film industry. One goal of this project is to call attention to film professions that are not immediately visible but that are vital to a film’s success,” explains KVIFF’s executive director Kryštof Mucha. “After honoring longtime director of Marché du Film Jerôme Paillard and producer Christine Vachon, this year we will pay homage to casting director Francine Maisler. The profession of casting director has gained increasing attention over the past years, as evidenced among other things by the fact that, starting in 2026, the Academy Awards will include an Oscar for casting.”
KVIFF will also honor actor Ivan Trojan with its President’s Award for Outstanding Contribution to Czech Cinema. He is a seven-time recipient of the Czech Lion, with four further nominations. His major credits include Andrea Sedláčková’s “Seducer,” David Ondříček’s “In the Shadows,” Agnieszka Holland’s “Charlatan,” his brother Ondřej Trojan’s Želary and many more.
In the coming weeks, KVIFF will announce their selections for the Crystal Globe and Proxima competitions, its Horizon and Special Screenings sections, and further tributes for cinema’s biggest names. In the meantime, the Kafka programming is enough to warm one’s curiosity with the same comfort as the oncoming summer.