Prague, July 12 (CTK) – The record number of 135,105 tickets were sold at the 50th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival that ended on Saturday, organisers told journalists yesterday.
There was also a record number of accredited visitors. Almost 13,000 of them came to see the festival.
The nine-day festival offered 488 projections with 226 films. A total of 35 of them had world, 26 international and 12 European premieres.
Some 200 projections were personally introduced by the delegations of the creators.
At the closing ceremony, festival director Jiri Bartoska invited everyone to the 51th festival, scheduled for July 1-9, 2016, thus dispelling the rumours that this year’s festival would be the last.
“Fifty years in the life of a man is a relatively short time, while the same time tract is a long time in the life of a cultural event,” Bartoska said.
“We do not know how long we will run, but we are running, we enjoy it and it is a good job,” he added.
The festival officials have agreed with the company Aerofilms and Czech Television (CT) that they will jointly screen non-commercial films, facilitating their way to the film screens.
Italian director Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth will be the first on October 8. Introduced by actor Harvey Keitel, it won the audience award at the festival.
Not only thousands of film buffs, but also 906 producers, dealers, sellers, distributors, representatives of film institutions and further professional film makers accredited themselves at the festival.
“Some 500 film professionals came to the festival from abroad,” Krystof Mucha, executive director of the festival, has told CTK.
“A total of 234 film buyers and distributors as well as 149 festival workers were selecting from new films and projects at the Works in Progress event,” Mucha said.
For the tenth time, the festival offered an overview of what is going on within the film creation “to the east of Prague” to the representatives of big shows, he added.
Central and Eastern European producers and directors introduced 15 selected feature films that have been finished, but do not yet have any international seller, Mucha said.
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