Director Kim Ki-duk Portrait - P 2014
AP ImagesThe Karlovy Vary Film Festival is introducing a new section dubbed Six Close Encounters that will see filmmakers and festival regulars present their favorite films. It is part of a range of celebrations to mark the festival’s 50th edition that opens on July 3.
The section will include classics, such as Orson Welles‘ 1959 A Touch of Evil, and family favorites like Babe, chosen by directors and producers that all have long-term relationships with the central European festival.
Kim Ki-duk, a long-time festival regular, will present Poetry, from fellow South Korean Lee Chang-dong. The film was made in 2010, the same year Chang-dong was a member of the festival’s main jury.
Nearly all of Ki-duk’s films have been shown at the festival, including such audience hits as his 2001 thriller Bad Guy and the world premiere in 2006 of Time.
The other filmmakers include Spanish producer Luis Minarro, who will present A Touch of Evil; Belgian director Michael R. Roskam, who will screen Rififi, the 1955 film noir directed by Jules Dassin; Japanese actor-director Shion Sono, who has picked Babe, directed by Chris Noonan; Belarus-born director Sergei Loznitsa, who is bringing Kira Muratova‘s 1989 comment on disintegrating Soviet society The Asthenic Syndrome; and Northern Ireland-born documentary director Mark Cousins, who will present Iranian-French 1996 film A Moment of Innocence, directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf.
All the films, which the six will personally present, were chosen for the “fundamental role in defining their own filmmaking styles,” said festival artistic director Karel Och.
“It is extremely important to us that we maintain long-term relationships with filmmakers whose work we follow continuously, often from the beginning of their careers, which in many cases were launched at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival,” he explained.
