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SPECIAL EDITION OF KVIFF’s MAIN MEDIA PARTNER 5 5/7 2016 FREE INSIDE Official Selection: By the Rails, Waves English Section, page 2 Another View: The Lure, Tramontane English Section, page 3 KVIFF honors Charlie Kaufman and Jean Reno English Section, page 4 Photo: Milan Malíček Felix van Groeningen: ‘The bohemian ideal, I guess, of “Fuck the world. We’ll do it by ourselves and make our own rules, and we’re different and we’re free”– yeah, I guess that was there.’ FROM BOHEMIAN SUPERMAN TO BELGICA OSCAR-NOMINATED DIRECTOR FELIX VAN GROENINGEN ON HIS NEW FILM AND HIS OWN ‘BROKEN’ CIRCLES Brian Kenety Charlatan when I was 12, and then my dad frail like me, I guess, and had a big belly I didn’t turn out to be so good at it... So, scale... It’s called Beautiful Boy. It’s based sold it when I was 23, to two brothers who – and he was bald (laughs). He also wore I thought, okay, I’ll just become the boss partly on a writer’s memoir about his re- Belgian director Felix van Groeningen had to start over, and the movie is like rings... So he was a strange man but just (laughs). It’s very strange how one thing lationship with his son who’s a crystal won a special mention at Cannes for The a strange mix of their story and the period really nice. He did it because of his love of led to another. My mother was working in meth addict. Misfortunates (2009), was Oscar-nomi- when my father had that bar. So it’s not people and because he loved music and film and TV, and I visited her on the sets nated for The Broken Circle Breakdown like my father is one of the brothers in hanging out. But the thing The Charlatan and really loved also the technical side of Both The Misfortunates and Belgica (2014), which won a Lux Prize, and was Belgica, but the atmosphere between the became was not what he really wanted. He it, sitting in the control where they mix TV feature this difficult dynamic between nominated for a KVIFF audience award, people – the bohemian ideal, I guess, of got swept away by the success. live. I used to sit there all day. I was brothers. Did you have such crazy rela- and won best director at Sundance for ‘Fuck the world. We’ll do it by ourselves amazed by it. I started making little films tionships or just find them fascinating? Belgica, a music-driven drama with and make our own rules, and we’re differ- Is Ghent a character in your film? or directing at school little plays when I do find it fascinating. I have a great a punk-rock ethos, loosely based on his ent and we’re free’– yeah, I guess that was Ghent has a vibrant scene. You know, I was 10... family – we’re very tight, but also in dad’s café-turned-nightclub in Ghent. there. And the strange thing is that hap- it’s a strange city. It became for Belgica a sense a little bit broken. My parents split He’s developing an adaptation of pened again when my father sold it to a character, although the accent of the What changed for you after the suc- when I was quite young... The idea of nev- Beautiful Boy, based on a father’s story those two brothers. main characters, the dialect, is West cess of Broken Circle? er finding that home, I guess, is something about his son’s drug addiction, for New Flanders. So in that sense, it’s not really What has changed? Well, when you’re I don’t suffer from, really, but it’s why Regency and Brad Pitt’s Plan B They went through the same process? Ghent. But what is Ghent? It’s a strange Oscar-nominated, you meet an incredible those kinds of strange families also fasci- Entertainment. He’s back at KVIFF to de- Yeah... Whenever something becomes mix of people coming together, I guess, amount of people and get an incredible nate me. And my father died when I was liver a masterclass within the intensive more serious – and especially in nightlife for me, and that’s what Belgica is. number of offers – which is amazing, but making my first feature, 15 years ago. But filmmaking program Future Frames. with alcohol and drugs – it’s just so hard you have to stay true to what you want to I love the people I’ve met and what I’ve not to cross the line and to lose yourself... When did you know you wanted to be do. I have to really fall incredibly in love been through because of that broken fam- How old were you when your father a film director? with a project before I’ll spend three years ily, that my dad had that bar and I was ran The Charlatan club? And were So was your dad a cool guy? Did that When I was a kid, I wanted to be an ac- working on it. So, in a sense, a lot could working there alone, living alone or with your parents also artists, or musicians make it hard to have a classic teenage tor. I loved the idea of playing the fool, but have changed, but hasn’t. We’ll see what my brother, at a young age. They were all – bohemian types? rebellion? always within my family circle. Once the future brings. I’m developing a U.S. interesting phases, and I don’t regret any Yeah, they were (laughs) – but not like He was cool, yeah (laughs). Not in a su- I had to do it for other people, I became project because of Broken Circle... and if of it. But there’s something I miss – the in the movie. The café became the perman sort of way or something. He was quite shy. I went to theatre courses, but it happens, it’ll be on a much larger idea of that ideal family. I miss that. z SEE YOU THERE EXPLAINER SENIOR PROGRAMMER THE THERMAL – A VERY CONCRETE STATEMENT KIM YUTANI SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL Dominating any aerial view of so designed the hexagon-tastic I think Polish actor Michalina I, Olga Hepnarova screens today at KV, the Hotel Thermal’s mono- Kotva department store in Olszańska is a really interesting new tal- 7:30pm (Lázně III Cinema) and July 8 at lithic concrete slabs and bewil- Prague. Whether you love or ent. She’s the lead actress in both the 5pm (Cinema B). The Lure shows July 6 at dering entrances make this hate the style, Věra and Vladimír Czech film I, Olga Hepnarova (dir: 1pm (Congress Hall) and July 8 at 2pm a fairly specific kind of architec- were masters of it. They’re on Tomáš Weinreb), where she plays a young (Cinema B). The Chickening screens today tural experience. It’s wrong to a par with the other famous sociopathic murderer, and also in The at 1pm (Národní dům Cinema) and July 8 dismiss this as a communist Brutalist couple, Alison and Lure (dir: Agnieszka Smoczyńska) – at 12:30pm (Čas Cinema) z monstrosity though. Peter Smithson, who coined the a vampire mermaid musical that won New Brutalism (as this style is term in England in 1953. Sundance’s Special Jury Prize. She’s ex- endearingly named) was not It’s their interiors that really cellent in both films. a communist movement, as ex- set the Czech pair apart. Like Le Also, I always recommend that people amples like London’s Barbican Photo: Petr Hloušek Corbusier, they designed every- at festivals see short films and documen- Centre demonstrate. Brutalism thing, from the foundations to taries, and something you didn’t plan or is a reference to the word ‘brut’, as in Le Corbusier’s pen- the light fittings. Strolling on the Thermal’s pebble dashed expect to see. In the Prague Short Film chant for “beton brut” (raw concrete), though many find the walkways, one can still see most of the original design. Festival Presents sidebar is a great film effect of thousands of unadorned tons of the stuff a little As KVIFF’s artistic director Karel Och once said, “It’s like called The Chickening (dir: Davy Force), brutal. a museum.” Unfortunately, it’s a bit frowzy, with ragged retro- a remix of The Shining that’s absolutely The Thermal’s renowned architects, Věra Machoninová fitting cluttering the clean lines. But with imagination (or bonkers and artistically quite out there. and her husband Vladimír, were also not kosher comrades, a multi-million koruna restoration job) we’d see a very dif- I also think short film programs are a great if his excommunication and subsequent work ban are any- ferent Thermal. We’d see, as 1960s KVIFF artistic director place to discover new talent. (BK) thing to go by. Before they fell out with the Party, they al- Ladislav Pospíšil said in his memoir, “a palace.” (CLC) z strana 2 / page 2 FESTIVAL DAILY Tuesday, July 5, 2016 OFFICIAL SELECTION OFFICIAL SELECTION BY THE RAILS – A LONG NIGHT’S WAVES – FEATURE DEBUT JOURNEY BACK TO INTIMACY CASTS SCRIPT ‘TO THE WINDS’ Photo: Archiv Grzegorz Zariczny Photo: KVIFF Cătălin Mitulescu’s third feature unfolds subtle cues, building tension Grzegorz Zariczny’s short doc The Whistle won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance By Hana Gomoláková By the Rails, Cătălin pecially the intimate ones. We By Hana Gomoláková You bring us close to the lapse of communism; people who Mitulescu’s third feature, un- tried to keep the distance alive characters through their daily have been unable to find their feet It’s summer in sunny Italy, and folds nearly in real time and is till the end, building up the inti- You chose to work with non- routine.

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