The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival toasted its 80th birthday in style during the Cannes Film Festival with a bustling luncheon — complete with a giant birthday cake — on the beach. Variety participated in the event, held at Plage Des Palmes, in partnership with the festival.
On hand to lead the celebrations were the Karlovy Vary chair Krystof Mucha and artistic director Karel Och, plus Jakub Havrlant, whose Rockaway Arts is the majority owner of the festival. Variety‘s publisher and co-president Dea Lawrence also headlined the event.
The second oldest film festival in the world after Venice, Karlovy Vary “combines the glamour of Hollywood with the youthful exuberance of the countless young cinephiles who flock from across Europe,” said Lawrence, speaking after guests had enjoyed a buffet lunch that included roast beef, salmon, risotto and truffled deviled eggs.
Lawrence also noted that the Czech spa town was also “among the most picturesque settings you could choose for a film festival.”
Other attendees at the Cannes luncheon included LuckyChap partner Milan Popelka, filmmakers Anna Maguire and Kyle Greenberg, producer Rémi Burahactress, Andreas Buhlmann of Swiss Films and model Ellyana Perosi
Mucha, who has been part of the festival since 1997 but was named chair last year, thanked Variety for “being with us more for than three decades.” He also thanked the luncheon guests for “being our friends and supporters through the ages,” adding “it’s a privilege to be part of this incredible story.”
Following the lunch and the speeches, a special multi-tier birthday cake was presented and was cut by Mucha.
First launched in 1946 in the heart of Bohemia, Karlovy Vary made its name in the 1960s for the Czech New Wave filmmakers and become a popular spot for international cinema auteurs such as Pier Paolo Pasolini, Tony Richardson, Glauber Rocha and Martin Ritt. Ken Loach, Richard Brooks and Stanley Kramer have also played in competition. After being revitalized by Czech theater and film star Jiří Bartoška in 1994, the festival began hosting big international stars — alongside a younger contingent of audiences that has continued to this day.
Among the names who have visited the festival are Robert Redford, Mel Gibson, Sharon Stone, Gregory Peck, Robert DeNiro, Johnny Depp, Susan Sarandon, Michael Douglas, Renee Zellweger, Michael Caine, Uma Thurman, Robert Pattinson and Julianne Moore.
In a special tribute piece, Steven Gaydos, Variety‘s former executive editor of content and a Karlovy Vary regular, wrote that: “Karlovy Vary was born in the 1940s under oppression, helped showcase unstoppable talents in the 1960s, who were then suppressed.’ While it suffered under Soviet oppression in the 1970s and ’80s, he said it emerged in the early ’90s with its original mission alive.
“It established its enduring qualities that have characterized it for more than 30 years: a festival is sensitive, intimate, focused on quality, still, youthful and thriving.”
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