Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has decided to cancel this year’s edition in light of the Czech government’s ongoing coronavirus measures and the ‘complicated worldwide situation today.’

The festival will still offer a taste of the festival at selected movie theaters nationwide and the online KVIFF Eastern Promises Industry Days. KVIFF has also joined the Youtube upcoming We Are One: A Global Film Festival.

The 55th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival will now take place July 2 – 10, 2021.

“We strongly believe that seeing a movie with other people in a theater is a powerful and irreplaceable experience,” says Jiří Bartoška, president of the Karlovy Vary IFF. “And because the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is one of the most important cultural events in the Czech Republic, we have decided that holding an alternative version would go against the festival’s main mission: to bring together audiences, filmmakers, and people from different walks of life in order to collectively enjoy works of cinema.”

Since the government’s plan for loosening the lockdown on June 8 will allow cinemas to screen movies to a specified number of viewers (50), the festival has decided to organize a special version of the traditional KVIFF at Your Cinema (July 3 – 11, 2020) program, whereby each year the best of the festival tours cities around the country. Now moviegoers nationwide will get a chance to see an outstanding selection of worthwhile films during the nine days originally planned for the festival.

The traditional dates of the Festival will be upkept also by a presentation of competing film projects KVIFF Eastern Promises (July 6 – 8, 2020) aimed at film industry professionals. Due to the predictable limitations of the current COVID-19 situation, this part of the Festival will move to a virtual space making projects in various stages of development and production from the region of Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the former Soviet Union, the Middle East and North Africa more accessible to international buyers, festivals and distributors.