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The 1969 Czech anthology film Prague Nights consists of a trio of tales of lust, revenge, and feminine wiles, each infused with a singular combination of the macabre, the grotesque, and the comically sensual in depicting some of the darkest and most mysterious aspects of Czech culture. Between the intriguing visual techniques (including color filters and stop-motion animation), genre mashups, and musical scores that range from Gregorian chants to Nino Rota-esque orchestral pieces, the segments readily whip up dense, moody atmospheres that are as playfully provocative as they are eerily doom-laden.

The film opens with a framing story in which a foreign businessman (Miloš Kopecký) is looking for a good time and follows a coquettish blonde (Milena Dvorská) into a remote cemetery where she regales him with three supernatural, fantastical stories. Where the pair are gallivanting about contemporary Prague, each successive segment is set further in the past and draws on...

Milan Kundera’s first novel, “The Joke,” won him critical praise and set the tone for a robust career in the spring of 1967, debuting just in time to catch the rising tide of freedom of expression that would reach its peak with the Prague Spring movement just a year later. Jaromil Jires crafted a screen adaptation of the book, in collaboration with the writer, which became one of the iconic films of the Czech New Wave.

The digital restoration of the film, part of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival’s program of preserving and promoting classic films, alongside the Czech National Film Archive, brings a crisp new copy of the film to audiences this summer. The chance to experience “The Joke” in a pristine state after extensive work by Prague post house Upp and studio Soundsquare has been a long-time coming.

When the Soviet crackdown, known as Normalization, rolled into...

Director Ken Loach, his longtime writing partner Paul Laverty, and composer James Newton Howard will receive top honors at this summer’s 52nd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

Loach and Laverty, the team behind “I, Daniel Blake,” will be awarded with the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema. The festival called Loach and Laverty “pioneers of British social realist film with a humanitarian message.”

Read More: 2016 Karlovy Vary Iff Awards Winners: ‘It’s Not the Time of My Life’ Takes Top Prize

Howard, who has composed the scores to films like “Pretty Woman,” “Batman Begins,” and “The Hunger Games,” will also receive the Crystal Globe, and is set to take part in an opening night concert at Hotel Thermal that he will personally conduct. The Czech National Symphony Orchestra will perform the world premiere of his score for the 2018 sequel to “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

‘Closely Watched Trains’: Oscar-winning movie classic gets special Academy screening (photo: Václav Neckár in ‘Closely Watched Trains’) Jirí Menzel’s first solo feature film, the World War II-set drama Closely Watched Trains / Ostre sledované vlaky (1966) was the 1967 Oscar winner in the Best Foreign Language Film category. Those living in the Los Angeles area will have the chance to watch a new print of Menzel’s classic on the big screen at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, September 23, 2013, at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. To be hosted by Oscar-nominated writer-director Philip Kaufman, the Closely Watched Trains screening will feature a rare onstage discussion with Jirí Menzel himself. A mix of light comedy and somber drama, Closely Watched Trains tells the story of Milos (Václav Neckár), a young railway worker whose routine life in a small Czech town is upended following the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia.