Director Ken Loach along with his long-time screenwriter Paul Laverty, and music composer James Newton Howard will be honored at the 52nd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
The Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema will be presented to two individuals who together have influenced the history of British cinema – director Ken Loach and his long-time screenwriter Paul Laverty. Ken Loach and Paul Laverty have worked together on twelve feature films and two shorts, in the process becoming pioneers of British social realist film with a humanitarian message.
The films of Ken Loach and Paul Laverty are regular winners of awards at renowned international festivals (Cannes, Venice), and Loach in particular has close ties to the festival in Karlovy Vary as well.
At the 16th Karlovy Vary IFF in 1968 Carol White has received Best Female Actress Award for her performance in Loach’s film Poor Cow. The film has also received a Special Jury Prize. In 1970, Loach personally accepted an award at the 17th annual KVIFF for his ground-breaking film Kes, a drama that the British Film Institute has included among the ten best British films of the 20th century.
Music composer James Newton Howard, the author of music to legendary movies such as Pretty Woman, The Sixth Sense, Batman Begins and all four parts of The Hunger Games will be a guest at the 52nd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, where he will receive the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema.
In 1985, he was offered his first film, Head Office, and he quickly knew he had found his calling. Since then, he has scored films such as all four installments of The Hunger Games, Concussion, The Huntsman: Winter’s War, Maleficent, Nightcrawler, Snow White and the Huntsman, The Bourne Legacy, Salt, The Last Airbender, Water For Elephants, Gnomeo & Juliet, Batman Begins, Collateral, Snow Falling on Cedars, Outbreak, The Village, Hidalgo, Peter Pan, Wyatt Earp, Lady in the Water, The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Freedomland, Treasure Planet, Signs, Falling Down, Primal Fear, Glengarry Glen Ross, Waterworld, The Devil’s Advocate, Dave, and Pretty Woman among many others. In 2016 he composed the music for the prequel to Harry Potter, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which was released in November.
In 2017 he is working on the scores for Disney’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, Inner City with Denzel Washington and Red Sparrow with Jennifer Lawrence.
The festival will continue a successful tradition with the world premiere screening of the digitally-restored, The Shop on Main Street from from creative pair Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos, and winner of Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1966.
One of the most highly respected filmmakers in the history of cinema, Japanese Master Kenji Mizoguchi, will be celebrated at the festival via a collection of ten fundamental pictures from his extensive filmography as selected by renowned British writer, curator and film critic Tony Rayns.
“At a time when film buffs are often forced to watch classic movies on screens that measure diagonally about the length of your forearm, KVIFF will provide big-screen viewing of mainly 35mm prints for another chapter in our series devoted to filmmakers who had an immense influence on the development of film culture,” said festival artistic director Karel Och.
The festival will also pay tribute to the legend of Czech cinematography Jiří Brdečka on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birthday. The festival will present the well-known film Lemonade Joe and the cross-section of the Brdečka’s short films.