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We see the world anew through the perspective of six-year-old Amálka in Tiny Lights. Directed by Beata Parkanová, this tender film premiered at the prestigious Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic. Told entirely from Amálka’s viewpoint, it offers young viewers an intriguing look at family dynamics while older viewers experience a nostalgic glimpse of childhood wonder.

Amálka lives with her parents and grandparents in a small village, unaware of the tensions simmering between the adults in her life. Through curious eyes and ears, she witnesses angry arguments and subtle discord. Yet being a child, she understands little of the complex emotions surrounding her, instead focusing on simple pleasures of playing with kittens, picking flowers, and listening to bedtime tales.

Parkanová keeps her camera closely aligned with Amálka’s height to fully immerse us in the girl’s world. We see what she sees and experience life as her limited understanding allows.

Czech filmmaker Beata Parkanová’s Tiny Lights world premiered this week in the Crystal Globe competition at Karlovy Vary film festival.

The film centres around six-year-old Amálka (Mia Banko) who hears snippets of her family bickering. Taken to spend an afternoon with her grandparents, she soon discovers that her mother wants to move away from the rest of the family.

Parkanová began her career writing novels and children’s books and then graduated from Czech film school Famu in 2015. Her debut feature Moments premiered at Karlovy Vary in 2018. Her sophomore effort Word played in main competition at Karlovy Vary in...

Skydance Media and National Amusements have tentatively agreed a new deal for the takeover of Paramount Global, according to several media reports, just a few weeks after the companies’ initial deal dramatically collapsed.

Reporting on the surprise development on Tuesday (July 2) the Wall Street Journal said Skydance has reached a “preliminary agreement” to buy Shari Redstone’s National Amusements and merge with Paramount, which is majority owned by National Amusements.

The new deal will be referred to a special committee of Paramount directors for review, the Journal added, and Skydance and National Amusements have agreed to a 45-day period during...

If you’re lucky enough to remember memories from your early childhood, you’ll know they tend to be fragmentary, skewed from an outlook incapable of fully grasping the adult world. Czech filmmaker Beata Parkanova captures that feeling beautifully in her film receiving its world premiere at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Related entirely through the viewpoint of a six-year-old girl, Tiny Lights emerges as a small gem.

It helps that the little girl, Amalka, is played by adorable child actress Mia Banko, possessing wide, saucer eyes that are endlessly expressive and long red hair of which Heidi would be jealous. In the opening scene, Amalka hears voices emanating from a closed-door room and, naturally curious, attempts to listen. She hears her grandmother angrily say to her mother, “Happiness? Save it for the fairy tales,” but she has no idea of what it means.

So she goes to play with her very submissive cat,...

The programme of the 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, which opens on Friday (June 28), is typically wide-ranging, befitting its reputation as a platform for both fresh discoveries and world cinema highights.

The Crystal Globe competition has the world premiere of UK director Mark Cousins’ A Sudden Glimpse To Deeper Things, a documentary portrait of UK painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. Also in competiton is Beata Parkanova’s Czech-Slovak title Tiny Lights which follows a family break up as perceived by a child. Parkanova won the best director award at Karlovy Vary in 2022 for Word.

Rising Norwegian writer director Lilja Ingolfsdottir’s...

The 58th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff), which kicks off in the Czech spa town on Friday, promises a balanced diet of world premieres and other movies to discover, as well as hits and favorites from the recent festival circuit.

Central Europe’s biggest cinema fest and party once again dishes up a mix of regional and international films, including serious and some more fun fare, with a healthy serving of edgy, innovative, genre-bending, maybe somewhat outlandish-sounding movies, which it has often used as a special ingredient.

So without further ado, here is THR‘s look at some of the more unusual and offbeat-sounding films that Kviff will unspool for cineasts, tastemakers and industry insiders from June 28 through July 6.

Tiny Lights

Some filmmakers are proud of providing a new and different perspective on important topics and issues. Czech writer and director Beata Parkanová seems to have...

Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has unveiled the official selection for its 58th edition, including new features by Mark Cousins, Noaz Deshe, Oleg Sentsov and Beata Parkanova.

The festival, which runs from June 28-July 6 in the Czech spa town, has selected 34 films for its official selection, which spans the main Crystal Globe Competition, the Proxima Competition and Special Screenings.

Scroll down for full selection

There are 11 world premieres and one international premiere in the Crystal Globe Competition. UK director Cousins world premieres A Sudden Glimpse To Deeper Things, a documentary portrait of British painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, a leading figure in...

The Karlovy Vary Film Festival has unveiled the official selection for its upcoming 58th edition. The lineup comprises 32 films across three sections and a host of world and international premieres. Scroll down for the full list.

Among the lineup is A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things, the latest film from prolific documentary filmmaker Mark Cousin. The film’s synopsis reads: One of the most important women in British modern art, the painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham was a highly inspirational figure, whose work was deeply impacted by a pivotal event in her life. In May 1949, this leading representative of the modernist St Ives group of artists climbed to the top of the Grindelwald glacier in Switzerland, an experience which was to transform the way she saw the world. She spent the rest of her life capturing its shapes and colors, indeed its very essence. In his essayistic portrait documentarist Mark Cousins delves into complex themes of gender,...

The 32-strong official selection of the 58th edition of Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Central and Eastern Europe’s leading cinema fete, will feature 15 directorial debuts as well as the latest works of established filmmakers such as Mark Cousins, Oleh Sentsov, Noaz Deshe, Antonin Peretjatko, Beata Parkanova and Burak Cevik.

Karel Och, artistic director of Karlovy Vary, said Tuesday that he’d identified a number of themes and genre in the selection, which included “a freshly revisionist take on the esthetical canons of a period film; a balanced, caring but also provocative look on the fate of a woman in the contemporary society in any moment of her life; and the immediate influence of political events on the life of an individual human being anywhere in the world.”

The festival, which runs June 28-July 6 in the Czech Republic, has also revealed the juries of the Crystal Globe and Proxima competitions. The...

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) has unveiled its competition and other lineups for its 58th edition, set to run in the Czech spa town from June 28 to July 6. It also set its competition jury, including indie film producer Christine Vachon who will be joined by Australian actor Geoffrey Rush, Hungarian director Gábor Reisz, Icelandic poet, novelist and screenwriter Sjón and Czech actress Eliška Křenková.

Organizers highlighted 15 directorial or feature-directorial debuts in this year’s official selection and various world premieres.

In its special screenings lineup, Kviff will present the world premiere of Ukrainian filmmaker and former Kremlin prisoner Oleh Sentsov’s new documentary Real. Sentsov “is currently defending his homeland as a lieutenant in the Ukrainian army, which he joined in the first days of the Russian invasion in February 2022,” the film description provided by the fest reads. “During one assault, his infantry fighting vehicle was destroyed by enemy artillery.

Connecting Cottbus took place November 9-11.

Polish writer-director Sonja Orlewicz-Zakrzewska’s debut feature Dolphin was voted as the best pitch at the 24th edition of the East-West Co-Production Market Connecting Cottbus, which took place during FilmFestival Cottbus.

Orlewicz-Zakrzewska and her producer Magdalena Sztorc of Warsaw-based Before My Eyes also received the Croatian Audiovisual Centre’s Project Development Award of € 5,000 toward the project’s further development.

The project, described as “an intimate dramedy with a surreal touch”, sees a singer’s boyfriend coming back from holiday with a dolphin growing inside his belly. Orlewicz-Zakrzewska said that “using the role reversal...

13 projects in development and six works in progress to be presented at festival’s co-production market.

New films from the Czech Republic’s Beata Parkanová and Slovenian director Martin Turk are among the projects in development and works in progress being presented at the 24th edition of the East-West co-production market Connecting Cottbus (coco), which takes place from November 9-11 during Germany’s FilmFestival Cottbus.

Parkanová’s feature project Black Blood, produced by Ondrej Zach of Prague-based Ozet Film, sees her returning to Cottbus after presenting her previous feature The Word as a work in progress at last year’s Connecting Cottbus.

Czech director-writer Beata Parkanová is in production with Czech-Slovak feature “Tiny Lights,” about a summer’s day in the life of six-year-old Amálka that captures a moment of transformation and loss, but also brings hope that she can turn this loss into the ability to observe and tell stories, Film New Europe reports.

“Tiny Lights” is set in the early 1990s in a small town in Czechoslovakia. Although the film features a main character who is a child, it is not a children’s film. It is an intimate family drama.

Parkanová said in a statement: “Against the backdrop of a heated marital crisis and complicated family relationships, the film captures a moment in the main character’s life where she undergoes a major transformation. We find ourselves in a day where external circumstances break the boundaries of Amálka’s world and bring to it a new, fully lived experience...

Summer of Hope team: (from left) director Sadaf Foroughi, Saman Majd (film crew), Kiarash Anvari (producer) and actress Leili Rashidi Photo: Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

The 56th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival roared back to full throttle after an interrupted two years with an awards ceremony which saw star turns Benicio Del Toro and Geoffrey Rush receive special lifetime achievement Crystal Globes while the event’s top prize was bestowed on Summer Of Hope, directed and written by Iranian-Canadian Sadaf Foroughi and set in Iran.

The film deals with a competitive swimmer as he struggles to train for an ocean-going competition.

Scene from Karlovy Vary top prizewinner Summer Of Love Photo: Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

Other awards which spread the prizes glory around Europe and elsewhere, included a Spanish study of interactions between friends in Madrid and directed by Jonás Trueba which received the special jury prize.

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Summer of Hope, director Sadaf Foroughi’s Iranian-set sports drama, has won this year’s Crystal Globe as the best film of the 2022 Karlovy Vary Film Festival.

The film is Foroughi’s second feature after the 2017 debut with Ava and portrays a marquee competition hatching a conspiracy of collusion between two young swimmers, family members, and their communities. Karlovy Vary’s special jury prize went to Spanish director Jonas Trueba’s You Have to Come and See It, which competed in competition.

The Czech Republic festival’s audience award went to Psh Neverending Storey, a local entry directed by Štěpán Fok Vodrážka. And the best director award went to Beata Parkanova for the film Word.

On the acting front, the best actress trophy was shared by Taki Mumladze and Mariam Khundaze for their performances in the film A Room Of My Own. And...

The Iranian/Canadian co-production “Summer of Hope,” a drama about the relationship between a young Iranian swimmer and his new coach, has won the Grand Prix in the Crystal Globe Competition at the 2022 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Kviff organizers announced on Saturday. Director Sadaf Foroughi and her producers will receive a 25,000 prize as part of the award, which was selected by the festival’s Crystal Globe Jury.

Spanish director Jonas Trueba’s “You Have to Come and See It” won the 15,000 Jury Prize, while Beata Parkanova was named best director for the family drama “Word.”

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“Word” also took the best-actor award for Martin Finger, while Taki Mumladze and Mariam Khundadze shared the best-actress award for their work in the Georgian film “A Room of My Own.”

The Pravo Audience Award went to the Czech film “Psh Neverending Story,...

Sadaf Foroughi’s Iran-set feature Summer With Hope has clinched the Grand Prix award in the main Crystal Globe Competition of the 56th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, running July 1-9.

The social drama revolves around a young swimming champion whose close bond with his trainer sparks disapproval from people around them.

Summer With Hope is Iranian-Canadian filmmaker Foroughi’s second film after Ava which debuted at Toronto in 2017, winning the Fipresci international critics prize.

Kviff’s Grand Prix comes with a 25,000 cash prize to be shared equally between the director and producer. Kiarash Anvari of Toronto-based First Generation Films is the lead producer on the film.

This year’s Crystal Globe competition jury comprised Argentinian film producer Benjamin Domenech, German filmmaker Jan-Ole Gerster, Polish distributor and festival organiser Roman Gutek, international sales agent and producer Fiorella Moretti and Danish film editor and screenwriter Molly Malene Stensgaard.

In other main competition awards,...

Czech title ‘Word’ takes best director for Beata Parkanova; ‘A Room Of My Own’ leads share best actress.

Sadaf Foroughi’s Canadian-Iranian drama Summer With Hope has won the Crystal Globe for best film at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff), which held its closing awards ceremony on Friday July 9.

Foroughi’s second feature is about a swimmer learning a new open water discipline, who develops a close alliance with his coach.

Scroll down for the full list of winners

Written and directed and produced by Foroughi, it is also produced by Kiarash Anvari and Christina Piovesan for Canada’s First Generation Films.

Iran-set coming-of-age story “Summer With Hope” won the top prize at the 56th Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival, winning over the Crystal Globe jury with its story of youthful competitive swimmer Omid as he struggles to train for a risky ocean competition.

The film, directed and written by Iranian-Canadian Sadaf Foroughi, is her sophomore feature, following up on 2017 teen drama “Ava.” The Karlovy Vary prize comes with 25,000.

The closing night gala, which filled the Grand Hall of the storied Hotel Thermal in the western Czech spa town, saw several honorees commenting on the critical issue of artistic freedom and urging solidarity with the people of Ukraine. Benicio Del Toro, honored with the fest president’s prize, praised Karlovy Vary for hosting the Odesa film fest’s work-in-progress event this year, saying, the support would help “ensure another culture won’t be a casualty of war.” He also thanked film audiences,...

For anyone passingly familiar with the turbulent events of 1968 in modern Czech history — or even the various films about them, from Philip Kaufman’s “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” to more home-grown evocations of the Prague Spring and ensuing Soviet invasion — director Beata Parkanová’s decision to set her second feature “Word” in that very year feels like a dramatic short cut, coloring proceedings from the outset with danger and anxiety that require little establishment or explanation. There’s enough finely sketched interior drama, however, in this study of a middle-class family facing down Communist Party threats, that its somewhat generalized sense of milieu feels like a strategic contrast: a crisp little picture framed in a hazy bigger one, defined by a nervy national mood that is implicitly felt rather than explicitly illustrated.

That elision of historical particularity in favor of a sensually recalled zeitgeist might make “Word” — the standout...

Czech screenwriter and director Beata Parkanova says she had a rich mine of real-life characters and scenes to draw on in crafting her second feature, the retro drama “The Word,” competing in the Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival’s main event, the Crystal Globe race.

The filmmaker behind “Moments,” a drama that competed in Kviff’s East of the West section in 2018, is screening her sophomore feature at Karlovy Vary in what artistic director Karel Och calls a “masterfully told and highly original intimate drama” built around the family of notary Vaclav Vojir, “a small-town moral authority,” and his fiercely loyal wife, Vera.

The story follows its protagonists through a political and societal ordeal in the summer of 1968, with nuanced performances by Martin Finger and Gabriela Mikulková.

Finger’s principled probate notary and his suffer-no-fools wife, played by Mikulkova, were both inspired by Parkanova’s own family, she says.

“I...

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In a region of the world — central and eastern Europe — that hasn’t had much to celebrate recently, the news that the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is returning in full force this year (the 56th Kviff runs July 1-9) is truly a reason to party.

“We had a physical event last year but it was still a bit under the cloud of Covid,” says Kviff artistic director Karel Och. “This time around, everyone is really in the mood, you can feel the atmosphere that makes Karlovy Vary so special. It’s going to be as close to [the last pre-pandemic festival] 2019 as possible.”

Karlovy Vary holds a unique position in the festival calendar. Coming after the craziness of Cannes and before the awards-season ramp-up that begins with Venice and Toronto, the Czech fest offers an oasis of calm. Located in the postcard-perfect spa town in western...

Geoffrey Rush and Benicio Del Toro will receive special awards at the 2022 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Kviff organizers announced on Tuesday. The two actors will both receive their awards during the closing ceremony on July 9 in the festival’s namesake spa town outside Prague in the Czech Republic.

Rush will receive the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema, an award that in the past has gone to Michael Caine, Julianne Moore, Jude Law and Judi Dench. Three of Rush’s films – “The King’s Speech,” “Quills” and “Shine,” for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor – will be screened at the festival.

Del Toro will receive the President’s Award for making “a fundamental contribution to the development of film and cinema.” “The Usual Suspects” and his Oscar-winning turn in “Traffic” will be screened for the occasion. Ethan Hawke received the President’s Award last year.

Film festival unveils 27 world premieres and three international premieres.

Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) has announced the line-up of 33 features for its 56th edition, which includes Jake Paltrow’s Ukraine-shot Adolf Eichmann feature June Zero.

The Czech festival will take place from July 1-9 and the selection includes 27 world premieres, three international premieres and three European premieres.

Scroll down for full list of titles

The 12 titles in the Crystal Globe Competition are all world premieres, with the exception of Anna Kazejak’s Fucking Bornholm; Sophie Linnenbaum’s The Ordinaries; and Jonás Trueba’s You Have To Come And See It – all international premieres.

Thirty-three films comprise the eclectic lineup for the 56th Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival, the programming team led by the artistic director Karel Och revealed Tuesday. The selection includes 27 world premieres, three international premieres, and three European premieres, covering five continents.

In addition to the Crystal Globe Competition and Special Screenings section, Kviff’s new competition, Proxima, will make its debut in this year’s edition. Proxima aims to be “an inclusive space for pictures by young filmmakers and renowned auteurs alike, presenting bold works that defy categorization,” the festival said. In contrast to the East of the West competition, which it replaces, Proxima has no geographical restrictions.

Thirteen titles in the official selection are directed by filmmakers who have competed in Kviff before. Nine films are debut features. Melodramas, dystopian sci-fis, romantic comedies and essay documentaries are part of the wide-ranging lineup.

“From the 1,500 films that have been submitted this year,...

Czech-Slovak 1960s drama Word, inspired by the director’s grandparents, is a second instalment in a planned trilogy. Emerging Czech writer-director Beata Parkanová is currently in production with her sophomore feature Word. Parkanová’s first feature-length outing was the intimate drama Moments, unveiled in the East of the West section at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2018. The film is a part of an intended trilogy written by the director with autobiographical aspects. While Moments was based on her experiences, the next instalment Word is inspired by her grandparents and the trilogy should conclude with Lights, following a six-year-old protagonist. Set between 1968 and 1969, Word revolves around the married couple of Václav and Věra. They promised each other that they would stand by each other's side in good times and bad times. The story follows the couple as they are tested after Václav refuses to become a member of...

The Swedish comedy Call Mom! by Lisa Aschan has come out on top in the Comedy Competition. The postponed Febiofest Prague 2020 (see the news) has announced the winners of its 27th edition. The Main Competition jury, comprising Czech filmmakers Beata Parkanová and Slávek Horák, and Czech actress Anna Polívková, stated: “Each of the films made an impact on us, affecting different parts of our personalities. That’s why we also decided to hand out a Special Mention. And it was precisely that award that represented the toughest choice, as it was hard to decide between these well-matched films. In the end, it went to Maria Sødahl’s Hope, which won us over with its sensitive telling of a story, with excellent acting performances.” The top prize went to the Slovak-Czech-Romanian-Irish drama Servants by Slovakian director-producer Ivan Ostrochovský, which premiered at this year’s Berlinale. “An extremely powerful story told by purely cinematic.

Dating back to 1948, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is one of the oldest film festivals in the world and has become one of Eastern and Central Europe’s most prominent events for cinema. The festival, which takes place in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic every July, has now announced the program of films for its Official Selection, East of the West, and Documentary competitions.

The Official Selection is composed of 12 films – ten world premieres and two international premieres – and is led by renowned Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude’s latest film I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History As Barbarians, which plays as an investigation on the large idea of nationality, and esteemed Argentinian director Ana Katz’s film Sueño Florianópolis, a family drama structured with elements of both trite and humorous storytelling. Among them, the line-up includes the complex romance The Fireflies Are Gone (by Canada’s...

Line-up includes films from Radu Jude, Ivan Tverdovsky and Ana Katz.

The 53rd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (June 29 - July 7) has unveiled the competition titles in its Official Selection, East of the West and Documentary sections.

Scroll down for full line-ups Main competition

The 12-strong main competition will comprise ten world premieres and two international premieres, including ”I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History As Barbarians” from Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude, whose 2012 title Everybody In Our Family won best film at the Sarajevo Film Festival.

Other films in competition include Ana Katz’s family drama Sueño Florianópolis,...