The 2018 Film Festival season continues to spin its wheels. Berlin is in full effect and we’re now less than three weeks away from the beginning of SXSW. The 2018 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival won’t begin until the end of June, but it’s already lining up its high profile tributes. This year’s will begin with famed filmmaker Richard Linklater and the Austin Film Society which he helped co-found in 1985.
Jeremy Renner talks “Wind River” at Karlovy Vary
In a release from the festival, Karlovy Vary’s Artistic Director Karl Och noted, “A tribute to AFS represents an exciting chapter in KVIFF´s long-lasting focus on American independent film production. Richard Linklater and his colleagues have been a huge inspiration to film communities around the world and we´re delighted to embrace the incredible achievement of the organization with a selection of outstanding films from Texas filmmakers that have been supported by AFS.”
“I’m so proud that AFS is receiving this incredible honor from the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. KVIFF is fully committed to the discovery of new voices,” Linklater said in a release. “It’s deeply humbling that they’ve chosen to tribute AFS by shining a light on the community of independent artists that we’ve worked so hard to nurture. With this series of films, KVIFF celebrates creativity and uniqueness of vision, which have been the only consistent themes in the many wonderful films that have come out of Texas over the past 40 years.”
According to the festival, Made in Texas: Tribute to Austin Film Society will present nine feature-length films and two programs of short films. Highlights include “Slacker,” Linklater’s first feature, contemporary western action “El Mariachi” from Robert Rodriguez, the offbeat indie “The Slow Business of Going by Greek” by Athina Rachel Tsangari, Laura Dunn’s documentary “The Unforeseen,” Jeff Nichols’ “Take Shelter, David Zellner’s minimalistic drama “Kid-Thing,” Bob Byington’s witty comedy “Somebody Up There Likes Me” and Andrew Bujalski’s retro stylised drama “Computer Chess.”
The section will also include “Last Night at the Alamo” directed by a pioneer of Texas independent film scene, Eagle Pennell, and shot two years before the foundation of the Austin Film Society. Other early works will include a program of six shorts originally curated by Jonathan Demme as a snapshot of the punk and new wave scenes of Austin in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Linklater’s last film, “Last Flag Flying,” debuted at the 2017 New York Film Festival. His next film is “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” which Annapurna has currently schedule for an Oct. 18 release.
The 2018 Karlovy Vary Film Festival will take place from June 29-July 7, 2018.
