ENGLISH SECTION Festival Daily SPECIAL EDITION OF THE OFFICIAL ENGLISH DAILY OF THE 43RD KARLOVY VARY INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Wednesday, July 9, 2008 free • strana / page 7 Slovak director day Interview with DIVÁCKÁ CENA / AUDIENCE AWARD Tomorrow’s program DENÍKU Dušan Hanák John Sayles Vote for the best film of the 43rd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival! strana/page 6, 11, 12 strana/page 8 6 strana/page 10 strana/page 2 Lowdown Evidently director Paul All you can hope for is contact Mazursky, known for his Hollywood triumphs in come- dy and romance, still possess- Veteran British director Nicolas Roeg rails against corporate censorship es the saucy sense of humor that made Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice such a hit in 1969. At Cóilín O’Connor now. But we won’t go into those the New Hollywood II line-up [laughs]... of Hollywood cinema legends, I In films like Don’t Look British director Nicolas Roeg, which included actress Rita Now and The Man Who Fell to Tushingham, cinematograph- who made his mark with brood- Earth, you veered quite far ing, disjointed masterpieces like er Vilmos Szigmond and away from the original materi- writer Lorenzo Semple, Performance, Walkabout and al. Why was that? The Man Who Fell to Earth, is the Jr., Mazursky cheerfully I don’t like making big plans. announced his intention to subject of a special tribute at You like to think that you can base return to the Czech Republic KVIFF this year. things on a premise, but that can to shoot a film “with a single then change. You often hear Czech woman.” I You’ve cast a lot of rock authors say how they changed Laughter greeted this decla- stars like Mick Jagger, David what a character was and nobody ration, and one cheeky pho- Bowie and Art Garfunkel in pulls them up for that. Painters tographer asked when he your films. Is there anything paint sunflowers in a way that God would cast the part. “Today!” about these performers that didn’t make them. Everyone’s dif- Mazursky responded, beam- attracts you? ferent. We’re all individuals inter- ing at the sea of clicking cam- They’re performers. Acting has preting things according to our era shutters. “It’s about changed over the years. own way. The only thing you can a photographer who loses his Performers are great single acts, hope to achieve when you’re camera,” he elaborated, “and aren’t they? Back then they were doing anything is to make contact his wife.” very close to the period. They had with someone. Not long after, a member of a closer understanding of the I From Walkabout to The the KVIFF technical staff changing form of things. And it’s Man Who Fell to Earth, your incited the wrath of Mazursky, always changing, isn’t it. Look at films regularly place the pro- who presumably won’t be the end of the hippies: That tagonists in an alien environ- signing up for assertiveness changed and became Wall Street. ment. What is your interest in training any time soon. And now that’s going down the having such culturally dislocat- “Turn that fucking cell drain and we’re going through ed characters? phone off!” he yelled when another change. And that will be Well I think one stands out the unmistakable ring of the enacted in a different way. more and you see things more in staffer’s mobile phone inter- Reality television, for example, is an alien environment. I don’t see rupted the panel a third time. changing what drama means, London the way a new visitor that Mazursky had just been isn’t it? has never been there sees it. You making the point that modern I What do you make of the Táborský Lukáš Photo: have been living here for years. audiences seem to lack the reality TV phenomenon? Pioneering director Nicolas Roeg who is being honored at KVIFF this year. I find this place terribly exhilarat- attention span required to “The world is ever-changing, ing and extraordinary. When it take in big-screen movies Mr. Farnsworth, like the uni- with, but corporate censorship is Bummed. What did you make of I think linear is more unusual gradually becomes familiar you because they spend so much verse.” That’s a line from Eureka about money. that? than lateral thinking. Your mind don’t see it the same way. It’s like time focused on their electron- [made by Roeg in 1984]. And I Speaking of corporate cen- I reacted in a very flattered and isn’t linear is it? When someone an extraordinary painting. ic gear. No verdict yet on that’s exciting. Generally, it’s cor- sorship, your studio was so nice way because at least I’d asks you, “What was it like grow- I Your work is now very whether they can recognize porate censorship that doesn’t shocked by Performance that made contact with someone. ing up in Ireland?” you get much part of the canon in the and appreciate irony. like change, because they have they didn’t want to release it. Is They had come back and said, a picture that comes into your West, but many at KVIFF will Meanwhile, blocks away, at just invested in something. it true that one of the execu- “Hello! I know what you’re think- head. In a film, you are able to go be seeing it for the first time. a former palace that’s looking They’re capable of doing things tive’s wives vomited during ing.” That’s the best I could hope into your eyes and see some inci- How do you think a “virgin a bit run down these days, that are 25 years ahead of what a test screening? for. I’d said hello to them in my dent there, which is what you are audience” today will react to journalists at the HBO Press they want to put on the market. Performance was a long time way, and they’d said hello back in thinking. I don’t think anyone your work of several decades Brunch were enjoying old- Change is huge, but that’s no ago. It had a very difficult birth. their way, which is terrific. It’s at lives in a linear world. It’s just ago? school atmosphere in a rare good to them. Corporate censor- But now it’s alright. least something. unnatural. They’ll probably be more old Karlovy Vary edifice that ship is the most powerful censor- I Clips from Performance I You are well known for I So you never deliberately familiar with that form, which is has not been made over and ship of all. It’s much more power- were actually sampled by Big your non-linear, cut-up editing try to wreck audience’s heads? ok. Any sort of new form – and turned into a cash cow. Good ful than moral censorship, politi- Audio Dynamite for the song technique. Do you have any- I’m trying to be closer to them. I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to location scouting, club 2 cal censorship and sexual E=MC , and it also inspired the thing against traditional plot- To understand. I’m trying to call it that – takes time to be Aeroport! censorship. They can be dealt Happy Mondays album lines? understand your thoughts right accepted. ± THERE ± KNOWLEDGE Anna Negri How did we get here? A brief history of KVIFF Director of Good Morning Heartache It’s the 43rd year of KVIFF so and Henry Fonda started to dis- the festival started in 1965, right? cover its delights and it became I am a little ignorant about the movies that Not quite. The film festival was a forum for directors of the Czech are showing because I just arrived yesterday. launched in 1946. Films were New Wave, such as Miloš Forman I think I would go and see Lou Reed’s Berlin presented by the nationalized and Jiří Menzel. first, because I love both Lou Reed and Berlin Czechoslovak film industry, This optimism came to an – and Julian Schnabel. And probably Ciao, along with films from Europe and abrupt end in 1968 with the arrival Bella just because the title is in Italian and it’s the USA. Each day a single film of the Russian tanks and during about something which really interests me – was screened three times in the 1970s and 80s Karlovy Vary comedies about the integration of different Mariánské Lázně and then rushed largely became a festival of dull or cultures. And also there is an all-time master- off to be shown the next day in pompous films from the Soviet piece, which is Bad Timing by Nicolas Roeg. Karlovy Vary. Union and “brother nations” that However, the Communist were often presented in conjunc- Bad Timing screens today at 11am in the Armin Mueller-Stahl at the takeover in February 1948 meant Karlovy Vary fest in the 1980s. tion with Communist party meet- Karlovy Vary Theater. Ciao, Bella screens the festival faced decades of being ings. Thankfully the massive today at the Panasonic Cinema. And Lou used as a propaganda tool. The Film Festival, as it had been decid- social and political changes of Reed’s Berlin screens today at 10.30am and changeable political climate was ed to allocate only one category 1989 meant that the festival was July 11 at 10pm in the GH Pupp Cinema. reflected each year in the festival “A” festival per year to socialist finally liberated from political You can see Negri’s Good Morning program and in the conferral of countries.