Prague, May 15 (CTK) – Karel Och, artistic director of the International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary, west Bohemia, will be a member of one of the juries at the 70th film festival in Cannes to be held on May 17-28, he has told CTK.
Och said this was a great honour to him as well as the appreciation of the Karlovy Vary festival.
The organisers of the prestigious film event inat the French Riviera announced on Sunday evening that Och would sit on the jury of the Un Certain Regard competition section.
“It is an honour to me to represent the Karlovy Vary International Festival in one of the juries in Cannes and thereby follow up my predecessor Eva Zaoralova that sat on the same jury in 2004,” Och said on Monday.
The jury of the Un Certain Regard section, which presents interesting films by young and less known directors, will be chaired by U.S. actress Uma Thurman this year. Apart from Och, its members will be Egyptian director Mohamed Diab, French actor Reda Kateb and Belgian director Joachim Lafosse.
Representatives of the Karlovy Vary festival have visited the Cannes festival, the most important annual film event, for many years.
“A number of films from its closely-watched programme are presented in Karlovy Vary a few weeks later thanks to our whole team headed by festival president Jiri Bartoska,” Och said .
Czech films have not been shortlisted for the main competition at the Cannes festival for years, but they often appear in its student film section Cinefondation.
This year, one of the competition films in the Un Certain Regard section will be Out directed by Slovak Gyorgy Kristof and shot in Slovak-Czech-Hungarian coproduction. The Czech State Cinematography Fund supported it with 3.5 million crowns.
Czech film Faust directed by Jan Svankmajer won this section in 1994.
