FRED Film Radio is joining the 50th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic, from the 3rd to the 11th of July 2015.

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is the largest film festival in the Czech Republic and the most prestigious such festival in Central and Eastern Europe. It is one of the oldest A-list film festivals (i.e., non-specialized festivals with a competition for feature-length fiction films), a category it shares with the festivals in Cannes, Berlin, Venice, San Sebastian, Moscow, Montreal, Shanghai, and Tokyo. Among filmmakers, buyers, distributors, sales agents, and journalists, KVIFF is considered the most important event in all of Central and Eastern Europe.

Every year, the festival presents some 200 films from around the world, and regularly hosts famous and important filmmakers. The Karlovy Vary festival is intended for both film professionals and the general public, and offers visitors a carefully designed programme, excellent facilities and a broad range of other services.

The first year of one of the world’s oldest film festivals was in 1946 in Mariánské Lázně. The festival moved to Karlovy Vary in 1947, and the following year the festival became competitive awarding its first Crystal Globe. In 1956, the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF) officially designated Karlovy Vary a category A festival.

The Karlovy Vary festival spent 40 years operating under political pressures in socialist Czechoslovakia. In 1994, a new team headed by well-known Czech actor Jiří Bartoška and leading film journalist Eva Zaoralová took over the festival’s organization and decided to reshape the stagnating festival into an film forum deserving of international attention. In just a few years, the new programming and organizational approach implemented by Bartoška and Zaoralová helped the festival regain its previous level of prestige and win back the interest of film professionals and the general public.

Each year, the Karlovy Vary IFF presents some 200 films from all over the world. Many of the films are shown only at the festival, while others make it into Czech or foreign distribution, onto television, or into other festivals thanks in part to their screening in Karlovy Vary. Except for films shown as part of retrospectives, all the presented works were made during the preceding year and are shown for the first time ever in the Czech Republic – many of them as world, international, or European premieres.

The greatest focus is on the traditional programming sections – the main competition, which is reserved for feature-length films shot during the previous season that have not been shown at any other festival in international competition, and the section “East of the West”, an international competition of debuts and second feature-length films from Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Greece, Turkey, and the countries of the former Soviet Union, shown exclusively as world, international, or European premieres. Other competitions include the Forum of Independents and the documentary film competition, and audiences can also look forward to thematic sections, interesting retrospectives or homages to exceptional filmmakers.

Click here to visit the official website of the 50th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.