Karlovy Vary Film Festival to Honor Geoffrey Rush, Benicio Del Toro

Geoffrey Rush and Benicio Del Toro will receive special awards at the 2022 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, KVIFF organizers announced on Tuesday.

The two actors will both receive their awards during the closing ceremony on July 9 in the spa town of Karlovy Vary outside Prague in the Czech Republic.

Rush will receive the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema, an award that in the past has gone to Michael Caine, Julianne Moore, Jude Law and Judi Dench.

Three of Rush’s films – “The King’s Speech,” “Quills” and “Shine,” for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor – will be screened at the festival.

Rush began his career in theater with the Queensland Theater Company. An important turning point in his cinematic career came in 1996, when he excelled in the role of composer and pianist David Helfgott in Scott Hick’s “Shine,” which won him an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA.

Two years later, he was again nominated for an Oscar, this time for his role in the historical romance “Shakespeare in Love.” Despite his work in cinema, Rush never left stage acting behind. In 2009, he won a Tony Award for playing the lead in Ionesco’s “Exit the King.”

Del Toro will receive the President’s Award for making “a fundamental contribution to the development of film and cinema.” His films “Traffic” and “The Usual Suspects” will be screened in Karlovy Vary. Ethan Hawke received the President’s Award last year.

He has been one of Hollywood’s most frequently cast actors since the 1990s. An important film in his career was Bryan Singer’s “The Usual Suspects” (1995), for which he earned a Film Independent Spirit Award. The following year, he excelled in director Julian Schnabel’s “Basquiat,” which was also shown in Karlovy Vary and which brought him his second Film Independent Spirit Award.

Last week, the festival announced its official competition titles, with 24 films from 27 different countries screening in three separate sections.

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival began in 1946 and is the foremost film festival in Central and Eastern Europe. This year’s festival, which runs from July 1-9, is the 56th KVIFF and will present more than 160 feature films across 13 sections.

Here is the list of competition titles:

Crystal Globe Competition
“America,” Ofir Raul Graizer (Israel, Germany, Czech Republic)
“Chemi otakhi” (“A Room Of My Own”), Ioseb “Soso” Bliadze (Georgia, Germany)
“Edna provintsialna bolnitsa” (“A Provincial Hospital”), Ilian Metev, Ivan Chertov, Zlatina Teneva (Bulgaria, Germany)
“F—ing Bornholm,” Anna Kazejak (Poland)
“Hranice lásky” (“Borders of Love”), Tomasz Wiński (Czech Republic, Poland)
“Isihia 6-9” (“Silence 6-9”), Christos Passalis (Greece)
“The Ordinaries,” Sophie Linnenbaum (Germany)
“Slovo” (“The Word”), Beata Parkanová (Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Poland)
“Tabestan Ba Omid” (“Summer with Hope”), Sadaf Foroughi (Canada)
“Tenéis que venir a verla” (“You Have to Come and See It”), Jonás Trueba (Spain)
“Tooi tokoro” (“A Far Shore”), Masaaki Kudo (Japan)
“Vesper,” Kristina Buožytė, Bruno Samper (Lithuania, France, Belgium)

Proxima Competition
“A pak přišla láska…” (“And Then There Was Love…”), Šimon Holý (Czech Republic)
“Los Agitadores” (“Horseplay”), Marco Berger (Argentina)
“Au grand jour” (“In Broad Daylight”), Emmanuel Tardif (Canada)
“Balaye aseman zire ab” (“Like a Fish on the Moon”), Dornaz Hajiha (Iran)
“Głupcy” (“Fools”), Tomasz Wasilewski (Poland, Romania, Germany)
“Još jedno proleće” (“Another Spring”), Mladen Kovačević (Serbia, Qatar)
“La pietà” (“Piety”), Eduardo Casanova (Spain, Argentina)
“Ramona,” Andrea Bagney (Spain)
“Stric” (“The Uncle”), David Kapac, Andrija Mardešić (Croatia, Serbia)
“Tinnitus,”Gregorio Graziosi (Brazil)
“Zkouška umění” (“ART talent show”), Tomáš Bojar, Adéla Komrzý (Czech Republic)
“Zoo Lock Down,” Andreas Horvath (Austria)

Special Screenings
“BANGER.” Adam Sedlák (Czech Republic)
“June Zero,” Jake Paltrow (USA, Israel)
“The Killing of a Journalist,” Matt Sarnecki (Denmark, USA, Czech Republic)
“Mein Vater, der Fürst” (“My Father, The Prince”), Lukas Sturm, Lila Schwarzenberg (Austria, Czech Republic)
“PSH: Zpátky do dnů” (“PSH: Back to the Days”), Štěpán FOK Vodrážka (Czech Republic)
“Rubikon,” Magdalena Lauritsch (Austria)
“Velká premiéra” (“Big Opening”), Miroslav Krobot (Czech Republic)
“You Won’t Be Alone,” Goran Stolevski (Australia, United Kingdom, Serbia)
“L’ îlot” (“Like an Island”), Tizian Büchi (Switzerland)