We are particularly proud about Italian cinema’s extraordinary presence at the 42nd Karlovy Vary Festival: a record-breaking thirteen films that criss-cross Italy, intertwining stories and especially characters. Women, men and children dealing with death, separation, emigration, family, illness and religion. Italian cinema has started to become courageous again, covering a wide terrain, confronting utopias and memories, proposing emotional and sentimental models and managing to talk about pain. This rings true for all of Karlovy Vary’s eclectic selection: whether for maestro Ermanno Olmi and established authors like Ferzan Ozpetek and Daniele Luchetti, or for the new generation of Italian cinema, well represented by Francesco Amato, Alessandro Angelini, Eugenio Cappuccio, Saverio Costanzo, Emanuele Crialese, Giorgio Diritti, Fausto Paravidino, Stefano Pasetto, Enrico Pau and Marco Simon Puccioni. We would like to thank the Festival’s director Eva Zaoralova for her sensitivity and attention towards Italian cinema. Our thanks also go to all the staff for their availability and competence. The fact that Italy is so well represented this year is also thanks to the hard work done by Luciana Rocca, the director of the Italian Institute of Culture in Prague. We welcome Daniele Gaglianone, back at Karlovy Vary as a member of the Grand Jury, and we wish Ferzan Ozpetek luck and hope the planets continue to be fortunately aligned for him.
Filmitalia