The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is celebrating two milestones at once this year. Its 60th edition also marks 80 years since the festival's founding, making it one of the oldest film gatherings in the world. According to The Hollywood Reporter, organizers have confirmed it predates both Cannes and Locarno.
The festival held its first edition in 1946 as a non-competitive event featuring 13 films, including international entries, organized across the spa towns of Mariánské Lázně and Karlovy Vary during the first half of August. It was originally called the Czechoslovak Film Festival. Venice is the only major festival that is older, having been founded in 1932, though its first post-war edition followed Karlovy Vary's inaugural one.
Kryštof Mucha, who joined the festival team in 1997 and became its executive director in 2004, has framed this year's edition around the idea of connecting past and future. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, he described the double anniversary as a chance to highlight key moments across the festival's eight decades.
"For this year's anniversaries, we wanted to point to a few moments from the history of the festival, so there will be a big exhibition in the streets, like last year when we had an exhibition of photos of Mr. Bartoška," Mucha said. "So we will feature the history of the festival, starting from 1946 until today. Also, 2026 is the Havel year, because he would be 90 this year. So we also want to remind people that Václav Havel was one of our big supporters, so there will be a small presentation of photos of him."
Bartoška, the festival's long-time president, served as its public face for more than three decades before his death last May. Havel, the playwright, former dissident, and Czech president, died in 2011 but remained a key behind-the-scenes force throughout his life. Mucha described the relationship between the two figures: "Havel was one of the key people in the new era of the festival, because Mr. Bartoška brought Miloš Forman to the festival, and Havel was a friend of Mr. Bartoška's."
The street exhibition will trace the festival's full history from 1946 to the present. A separate presentation will focus on photographs of Havel.
