The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has announced its first wave of program details for its upcoming 58th edition, which is set to take place from June 28 through July 6, 2024. The Czech festival, widely considered to be the most prestigious film festival in Eastern Europe, is set to honor one of the nation’s most famous writers with a new retrospective titled “Franz Kafka and the Cinema.”
The series is set to feature screenings of a wide range of films inspired by the Czech novelist, who famously wove themes of alienation and existential angst into cryptic novels that often flirted with surrealism. Some films, like Orson Welles’ “The Trial” are direct adaptations of Kafka’s writings; but the series also includes movies about Kafka’s life, and films like Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours” that were influenced by Kafka’s ideas.
“For decades, Kafka’s oeuvre has functioned as a continuing provocation to filmmakers,“ KVIFF artistic director Karel Och and consultant Lorenzo Esposito, co-curators of the program, said in a statement. “It is as if he were slyly challenging them to attempt to capture as authentically and intensely as possible the elusive nature of his formulations, of his narratives, of the realities he has crafted and the feelings of apprehension he elicits, yet also of the comic situations he has created.”
In addition to the Kafka retrospective, the festival will include a tribute to prolific casting director Francine Maisler and honor actor Ivan Trojan with the annual Festival President’s award.
Keep reading for a list of Kafka-inspired films set to screen at the 58th annual Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
“The Trial” (dir. Orson Welles, France/Italy/West Germany 1962, 116 min.)
“Joseph Kilian” (Postava k podpírání, dir. Pavel Juráček, Czechoslovakia 1963, 38 min.)
“The Money Order“(Mandabi, dir. Ousmane Sembene, Senegal/France 1968, 105 min.)
“The Castle” (Das Schloß, dir. Rudolf Noelte, West Germany 1968, 88 min.)
“The Audience” (L’Udienza, dir. Marco Ferreri, Italy/France 1971, 112 min.)
“Metamorphosis” (Die Verwandlung, dir. Jan Němec, West Germany 1975, 55 min.)
“The Tenant” (Le Locataire, dir. Roman Polanski, France 1976, 126 min.)
“After Hours” (dir. Martin Scorsese, USA 1985, 97 min.)
“Fellini’s Intervista” (Intervista, dir. Federico Fellini, Italy 1987, 105 min.)
“Tetsuo” (dir. Shin’ya Tsukamoto, Japan 1989, 67 min.)
“Kafka” (dir. Steven Soderbergh, USA/France 1991, 98 min.)
“Kafka“(dir. Zbigniew Rybczyński, France 1992, 52 min.)
“Amerika” (dir. Vladimir Michálek, Czech Republic 1994, 90 min.)
“Franz Kafka’s a Country Doctor” (Kafka Inaka Isha, dir. Koji Yamamura, Japan 2007, 21 min.)
“Artist of Fasting” (Danjiki geinin, dir. Masao Adachi, Japonsko 2016, 104 min.)
“Mr. Kneff” (dir. Steven Soderbergh, USA 2021, 78 min.)
“The Tomb of Kafka” (Le Tombeau de Kafka, dir. Jean-Claude Rousseau, France 2022, 14 min.)
