Alumni Films Screening at 58th Karlovy Vary Film Festival
The 58th edition of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Central and Eastern Europe’s premier cinema event, has announced its official selection, which includes films by two School of the Arts alumni: Nelicia Low ’18 and George Sikharulidze '17.
In the Crystal Globe competition, Low is participating with her film Pierce, which was executive produced and edited by Professor Eric Mendelsohn. Pierce tells the story of Zi-Jie, a high school fencer whose older brother is released from prison. Believing his brother is innocent, Zi-Jie helps him behind their mother’s back, only to realize that the brother he idolized might only be a fantasy.
In the main competition, Sikharulidze presents his film Panopticon, which he wrote and directed. In the movie, teenager Sandro falls into a spiral of adolescent uncertainties when his father leaves for a monastery to become a monk. With a mother working abroad illegally and a grandmother too old to substitute as a parent, he is practically left alone. He has no choice but to support his father, as devoting one’s life to God is one of the most noble acts in the deeply religious, post-Soviet Georgia. He must turn to religion himself and, without realizing it, his choices and behavior are shaped by the oppressive, invisible spiritual surveillance of his father and God.
The Karlovy Vary Film Festival, running from June 28 to July 6, 2024 in the Czech Republic, is renowned for its celebration of both emerging and established filmmakers. “The 58th KVIFF official selection, [the] closely watched core of the festival's annual line-up comprising the Crystal Globe and Proxima competitions as well as the Special Screenings program, offers a unique epicenter of genres and themes vibrating through contemporary cinema,” said Artistic Director Karel Och, who curated this year’s selection. “Freshly revisionist takes on the esthetical canons of a period film, a balanced, caring but also provocative look on the fate of a woman in 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. My colleagues and I discovered these themes running through our selection of films.”
The festival also announced the distinguished juries for its Crystal Globe and Proxima competitions. The Crystal Globe jury includes producer Christine Vachon, actor Geoffrey Rush, director Gábor Reisz, poet and novelist Sjón, and actor Eliška Křenková. The Proxima Competition will be judged by filmmaker Mohamed Kordofani, producer Bianca Balbuena, Daniela Michel, the founding director of the Morelia Film Festival, Wouter Jansen, the founder of the sales company Square Eyes, and filmmaker Adéla Komrzý.
See the full lineup here.