ENGLISH SECTION Festival Daily SPECIAL EDITION OF THE OFFICIAL ENGLISH DAILY OF THE 47TH KARLOVY VARY INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Friday, July 6, 2012 free • strana / page 1 Casey Walker on the day DIVÁCKÁ CENA / AUDIENCE AWARD Tomorrow’s program Moonrise Kingdom perils of crowdfunding starlet Kara Hayward DENÍKU Vote for the best film of the 47th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival! strana/page 6, 7, 8 strana/page 3 8 strana/page 4 strana/page 2 THE LOWDOWN Yes, we’re many days into Women love attention the fest-madness now (who knows quite how many?) and things are starting to get weird. Leila Hatami on breaking stereotypes and finding the real Iran First, there’s the story of the Will Tizard very young. I think women love things like disappearing chef in a certain that. To attract their man’s attention. Indian restaurant in town. The n And is that what’s motivating your Lowdown arrived, eager and Leila Hatami, the Iranian actress who character to make all this trouble in The innocent, and was shown to starred in that country’s first Oscar-win- a table. A little later the menus A Separation Last Step? ning film, (which screened I think in this film it is not even for that. arrived, and we made some last year at KVIFF) is here with Crystal She didn’t decide this. There isn’t even choices, dreaming of a curry to Globe contender The Last Step, directed a plan. Suddenly, she wants to make her- replace some of the nutrients and written by her husband, Ali Mosaffa. self important. She does but she didn’t plan lost during the hours we spend Now her country’s most iconic face, Hata- for it. cloistered in a windowless mi grew up in a family that had cinema in n You have said that you see Iranian cell, deep within the bowels of its blood and appeared as a child in films film undergoing a kind of renaissance the Thermal. But a little under by her father. Despite international star- currently. What do you think is driving half an hour later, the waitress dom, the former electrical engineering stu- this? returned with the dreadful dent says her work as an actress when at It’s not only now. I don’t want to say it is news that the kitchen was home hasn’t changed all that much – and better – I want to say it is more varied. Be- closed. Weak with fatigue, we she seems content to keep it that way. cause years ago, for example, we only had had no choice but to stay at the table, attempting to nourish n Your husband made a quip that one stereotype that we thought is very nice ourselves with the unparalleled having you as his leading lady meant for the world, the foreign world. It is exot- fruits of the local breweries. that, for the first time, he could count ic. We kept doing this. We didn’t have this, Several beers later, the waitress on his actress to actually do what he maybe, courage to do, to experience, dif- returned and told us the wanted. ferent things. kitchen was open again! Either (Laughs) I’m always like that. When n But the films within Iran’s borders they really liked us, or the chef I play, I listen to the director. Probably, I’m were surely more varied and interesting had left the kitchen for some under his command. than the ones that are exported. kind of clandestine activity. n You often play a Leila in your films We did have the courage inside. But Other, more nefarious deal- – what is the difference between the I think after this success of A Separation – ings were behind our narrow Leila we see on screen and the one sit- already before, I can say, inside the country escape later in the evening. We ting here now? there was a new generation of directors (I’m stepped out of Shaffy’s and In fact, in this film, this is Leili. I played not talking about my husband – I’ll put him straight into crime noir. With a lot of Leilas, this is true. But this time it’s aside because his first film was eight years the neon and the full moon Leili. And the difference between Leila and ago). But what I meant and am talking about shining, we crossed the narrow Leili in our culture is a bit subtle because is, about five years ago, a lot of the young street a split-second before Leila is a common name. But Leili is much generation didn’t consider, for example, just a silver BMW, screaming more sophisticated. It is reserved for well- one or two artists. And all of them respect along at over a hundred, raced to-do families. Not necessarily rich, but basic and fundamental techniques of film- past in the direction of the with a good background. And it is one of making. This, for me, is new as an actress. Thermal, closely followed by the characters in our poems, a love story Years ago it was not at all like that. the flashing lights of KV’s from the sixth century. So Leili is the sym- n How does this differ from how it finest. Evidence mounts for an bol of a nice, young woman whom some- used to be? So there were fewer direc- illegal moonlit KV street rac- body’s in love with. tors and they were perhaps more like ing gang, playing for pink n The deep roots of Persian culture moguls? slips along the cobblestones in really still color what we see in its films, You had an artist in front of you as a di- the dead of night. Which don’t they, in terms of non-linear stories rector but otherwise he was really nothing. would explain the pigeon or dream-like realities? So Leili also You couldn’t do a film with him. But now blackspot at the bottom of T.G. shows us something of that? it is much more like in the States, for ex- Masaryka. There’s a fresh And Leili is Iranian. Leila is an Arabic ample. You can play a role with a nice Photo: Milan Malíček Photo: corpse there every morning, name but Leili, because it was in literature, script, with a first-time, beginning director. and if they’re not getting mown it is considered much more Iranian. Iranian actress Leila Hatami, who appears in The Last Step. They have the technical knowledge and al- down by souped-up Midnight n So then what were the parts of the so they are adult enough to manage a film. Club muscle cars, we can only character that were most challenging or this nothing, it costs a lot and it becomes a lot, those things. For example, I sent n And what is it that you most want surmise that it’s either appealing for you? very serious. And maybe it costs a life. But a very beautiful bouquet of roses for my- the world to know about Iran – or a Bermuda Triangle-style con- What I liked in this character was that she lies for nothing. Like that. self. And I just mentioned nothing. But the maybe Iranian film? fluence of mysterious energies, she lies. This is very true and you don’t see n Why do you think she lies so easily? people around be were thinking it could be If people can find the quality films, they or an avine serial killer. n it in a lot of films. To lie for nothing. But Women do this. I remember that I did it a lover…but it was me. And I was really can find the real Iran. n SEE YOU THERE EXPLAINER Simon Perry Graphic art, handbags, and gladrags If your movie-worn eyes are featuring original hand-tinted Chairman, Ateliers du Cinéma Européen crying out for art of the still kind, photographs. (Open daily from KV offers several options and, of 9am to 7pm. Entry free.) I wasn't here for the opening of the festival so course, Czech artists are among The Museum of Karlovy I want to catch Good Vibrations before I leave. I love the finest in the world. The Vary (Nová Louka 23) has some- stories that depict the behavior of ordinary people in Karlovy Vary Art Gallery (at thing a little bit different at the extraordinary, extreme situations − particularly ordi- Goethova stezka 6) is well worth moment – A Symphony of nary people caught up in war, which are so much a visit. The permanent exhibition Handbags. This is a small but more telling than stories of soldiers and battles. In houses an extensive collection of representative collection of the this case the ordinary person is a young man who de- Czech 20th century art. Current beaded and embroidered bags cides he is not going to let the Troubles in Northern exhibitions feature work by that well-bred ladies would carry Ireland interrupt the daily life of the record shop he renowned Czech graphic artists to evening events in the 19th and owns in the middle of his constantly bombed home Jiří Slíva and Zdeněk Ziegler early 20th centuries. city, Belfast. While I was running the Irish Film (one of whose film posters is pic- There are not only handbags Board we provided financial support for the project, tured) and 20 puppets made by but also beaded costume jewelry which is directed by a young couple who work to- master Czech animator Jiří gether and who did decent work before.