Karlovy Vary Film Festival to Support Ukraine by Screening Films From Canceled Odessa Fest

thewrap.com:

The 2022 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has announced that it will host the films in the Works-in-Progress section of the Odessa International Film Festival, which cannot be held this year because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.    “Broad solidarity with war-afflicted Ukraine must also include support for the country’s cultural life, which at this moment has come almost to a halt,” Hugo Rosák, head of KVIFF’s Industry Department, said in a statement. “As a film festival, we have tried to find ways of supporting Ukrainian cinema, and we are glad that we have managed to work with the Odesa film festival to find a meaningful form of cooperation.”The Ukrainian works will be shown in the OIFF WIP section, and will be showcased during the 56th annual KVIFF, which will take place from July 1 through July 9 in the spa town outside of Prague in the Czech Republic.Last year’s festival was delayed until late August because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but this year the event is returning to its usual early-July dates.KVIFF organizers also announced that its KVIFF President’s Award, which is awarded to a notable figure in Czech cinema every year, will go to actor-writer-director Boleslav Polívka, who co-founded the Goose on a String theater and founded the Bolek Polívka Theatre.

Polívka’s film roles include 1996’s “Forgotten Light” and 2000’s “Divided We Fall,” which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.In addition, the festival will present a digital restoration of “The Joke,” director Jaromil Jireš’s 1968 adaptation of Milan Kundera’s novel of the same name.