KVIFF Classics Returns to Světozor Cinema with Restored Film Gems

From Thursday, 16 January, to Saturday, 18 January 2025, Prague’s Světozor cinema will host the third edition of KVIFF Classics, a showcase of classic films organized by the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in cooperation with the National Film Archive.

As usual, the KVIFF Classics show, with the subtitle Returns of Film Legends, will offer Czech and foreign films that have made an indelible mark on the history of world cinema and can no longer be seen on the big screen.

Since most of the featured films have undergone digital restoration, the event continues the tradition of presenting restored films and retrospectives at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival.

The festival will commemorate, among other milestones, the centenaries of the birth of three film greats: actors Paul Newman and Peter Sellers, and director Robert Altman.

KVIFF Classics will open with Věra Chytilová’s Kalamita, whose restored version was made possible thanks to the financial support of Milada and Eduard Kučer.

“Classics belong on cinema screens, and we are happy to continue this mission. The third edition of KVIFF CLASSICS presents a varied genre mix of films that have stood the test of time with honour, among other things thanks to the captivating charisma and dazzling acting of those who have put their faces to legendary films – Paul Newman, Peter Sellers, Humphrey Bogart, Lino Ventura, Toshiro Mifune, and Boleslav Polívka,” says Karel Och, Artistic Director of KVIFF.

The opening ceremony will take place on Thursday, 16 January 2025, at 7 pm in the Great Hall of the Světozor cinema. The KVIFF Classics show will feature the Czech premiere of Věra Chytilová’s digitally restored film Kalamita (1980, Czechoslovakia), which had its world premiere six weeks ago at the Lumière Festival in Lyon, France.

In this layered and bitterly comedic parable of existence during the normalisation era, the then thirty-two-year-old Boleslav Polívka excels as the thoughtful and well-versed university student Jan Dostál, who faces a series of humiliating interviews and undisguised corruption in his quest to pursue a meaningful profession as a machinist.

In addition to director Věra Chytilová, other masters of their craft, including Ivan Šlapeta (cinematography), Jiří Brožek (editing), and Laco Déczi (soundtrack), contributed to the film’s success.

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