The spirit of Václav Havel and Jiří Bartoška lives on at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF), and attendees of the 60th edition of the Czech fest will feel a sense of continuity and legacy, a reminder of the long history of the festival, along with innovations and updates that the team always looks to add regularly when it makes sense.
In fact, Kryštof Mucha, who joined the festival team in 1997, became its executive director in 2004 and has added the role of chairman of the board of the KVIFF Group, says for him and his colleagues, it is all about connecting the past and the future. This mix of looking back into history and paving the way into the future will also be a central theme of this year’s double anniversary edition of KVIFF, given that the fest was launched 80 years ago.
Indeed, one of the oldest film festivals in the world, Karlovy Vary was part of the so-called “first wave” of post-war European film festivals. Its first edition was held in 1946 as a non-competitive event with 13 features, including international participation, organized by the spa towns of Mariánské Lázně and Karlovy Vary during the first half of August.
Organizers highlighted earlier this year that this first edition actually took place “before the inaugural editions of the festivals in both Cannes and Locarno.” The event was at first called the Czechoslovak Film Festival, and the first edition was actually held in Mariánské Lázne; then in Mariánské Lázne and Karlovy Vary; and later solely in Karlovy Vary.
The Venice Film Festival is older, having been founded in 1932 and renewed in 1946, with its first post-war edition following KVIFF’s inaugural edition.
That long history, with all its ups and downs, is something that Karlovy Vary will highlight in its double anniversary year. Two key figures have long been seen as ambassadors for the fest. They are long-time festival president Bartoška, who died last May after being the public face of KVIFF for more than three decades, and Havel, the author and former dissident-turned-Czech-president, who died in 2011, but was a key force behind the KVIFF scenes.
“For this year’s anniversaries, we wanted to point to a few moments from the history of the festival, so there will be a big exhibition in the streets, like last year when we had an exhibition of photos of Mr. Bartoška,” shares Mucha. “So we will feature the history of the festival, starting from 1946 until today. Also, 2026 is the Havel year, because he would be 90 this year. So we also want to remind people that Václav Havel was one of our big supporters, so there will be a small presentation of photos of him.”
About the importance of the politician and the actor-turned-festival-president for KVIFF, Mucha tells THR: “Havel was one of the key people in the new era of the festival, because Mr. Bartoška brought Miloš Forman to the festival, and Havel was a friend of Mr. Bartoška’s. In those days, everybody was interested in meeting with Václav Havel.”
The story goes like this: Havel would tell people from the film world interested in meeting him that he would be in Karlovy Vary in July, and they should come there if they really wanted to get together with him. “That was the best support we could ever have,” Mucha recalls. “When I went to the United States, I was the one to prepare the invitation letters. And I went to Mr. Havel’s office, and he was using these colored pens, green and red, and he would write: ‘We will see each other in Karlovy Vary.’ So I was using these invitation letters, and that really helped.”
The two famous names and their close relationship were pivotal when KVIFF fell upon hard times. In 1993, the government of the new Czech Republic withdrew financial support for many cultural events to focus them on becoming financially independent, putting KVIFF at risk. After a backlash, the Ministry of Culture convened a group of influential citizens to figure out a path forward. Bartoška and veteran film journalist Eva Zaoralová worked with the ministry, the city of Karlovy Vary and the historic Grand Hotel Pupp, which later became the inspiration for Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel, to establish the Karlovy Vary Film Festival Foundation.
In 1995, Bartoška became the festival’s president, Zaoralová its program director (a position she held until her death in 2022). Then the International Federation of Producers Associations revoked the fest’s A-category status and transferred it to the new Golden Golem fest in Prague. But Havel came through. He declined to visit the Prague event, instead showing up on the opening night of KVIFF. From there, KVIFF evolved into today’s haven for cinema fans and celebrities.
But the history of KVIFF also extends well beyond Bartoška and Havel, “we are very proud of being the second-oldest film festival in the world,” Mucha tells THR. “It’s only by a few days, because Locarno and Cannes came out a couple of days after us, but this is very important for us.”
The fact that this year marks KVIFF’s 60th edition in its 80th year tends to confuse people. The reason was that during the time of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, the political leadership wanted to have an A-list film festival in Moscow, but also realized that there was already an existing fest in Karlovy Vary. “So they decided it would be biannual events, taking place every second year in Karlovy Vary and in Moscow,” Mucha explains.
Something interesting happened when Bartoška died last year. “A lot of people came to us and asked if he was the founder of the festival, and we realized that, even in this country, many people don’t know about this incredible history of the festival and that it started in 1946,” shares Mucha. “So we said, okay, we have to remind people of this and that they should be proud of something like that.”
KVIFF’s lineup announcement this year also name-checked one of the festival’s founders, long-time director of programming A. M. Brousil, who put an early focus on non-European cinema, opening selections beyond the region where the fest takes place. And Karlovy Vary proudly highlighted that its anniversary program features “extraordinary geographical diversity.”
And that’s exactly where the past and future connect to keep KVIFF and its audiences and attendees energized. Concludes Mucha: “We have a film festival that survived the ugly [decades under Soviet domination 1948-1989] in this country. Our festival has a rich history, and we can and should be proud of it.”