Opening of the festival in Vary: Dustin Hoffman moved to tears, another Hollywood star mentioned Bartoška
This year's ceremonial opening of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival also brought a number of emotional, funny, and surprising moments. However, one anticipated guest was missing.
Opening performances are always a separate chapter and often of world-class quality. This year's, from my perspective, was somewhat weaker compared to previous years, and at times seemed chaotic. Nevertheless, it was successful and presented an original concept.
Happy Birthday!
KVIFF is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, and the organizers decided to make the opening performance a musical birthday wish to the festival itself. Among the well-wishers was a whole array of domestic acting stars.
The event started with the well-known happy birthday tune to help the audience understand the mentioned concept. At the piano on stage sat Jan Maxián from the band Tros Discotequos. The singing was initially taken over by actor Ondřej Havelka.
At first, it seemed that this lineup would be final – but suddenly Oskar Hes came onto the stage. He sang part of the Czech anthem to a musical background unknown to me (he did not sing to the original music of the anthem). It sounded at least peculiar, and I didn't understand how the Czech anthem fit into the concept of a jubilee greeting. Also, Hes seemed a bit uncertain to me, which makes sense on the other hand, because he is an actor and not a singer.
There was certainly a pleasant memory of the former festival president Jiří Bartoška, whose voice was heard after Hes's entry from a recording.
And then, in a relatively brisk pace, more and more actors and actresses took turns on stage. The performers sang lyrics set to various musical backgrounds of well-known songs, congratulating the festival on its anniversary and created specifically for this purpose.
On stage were Bára Poláková, Jan Cina, Berenika Kohoutová, Klára Melíšková, Jana Plodková. And also Jakub Procházka, who sang to the accompaniment of the band Kabát and their song Pohoda. A pleasant moment was the arrival of Dan Bárta and later Matěj Ruppert, who sang a song from his repertoire Piece of My Life. They were the only non-actors and "real" singers among the performers.
I think the last person I haven't mentioned is Jitka Čvančarová, who had the most challenging singing part at the end of the entire performance – she sang to the backing track of Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On from the movie Titanic. I'm not a musician, but it seemed to me that she missed a bit on the high notes. At the very end, everyone sang together side by side – which felt a bit cheesy, but on the other hand, it was a logical and predictable climax for the opening number.
The Joke That Made Everyone Laugh
After the opening performance and well-deserved applause, the person I was really looking forward to appeared, alongside the late Jiří Bartoška, another main face of the festival – the host of the opening, Marek Eben.
After a moment, he came up with a joke that will probably stay with me for a long time. And one that I wouldn't actually expect from him. Perhaps that's why it amused me so much.
He expressed that he would explain to the foreign guests who they just saw. Understandably, they had no idea that they were looking at our greatest acting stars. So Eben took the word in English and told them exactly that, additionally mentioning that two of the performers had won a celebrity dance competition (StarDance – Jan Cina and later Oskar Hes, editor's note).
"If they lived in the USA..."
he remarked.
I expected him to say something along the lines that they—at least some of them—would be global stars comparable to Johnny Depp or Natalie Portman.
"...they definitely wouldn't be as famous. But because they live in the Czech Republic, they are stars,"
he continued, and the audience burst into laughter.
"Here they are famous as hell,"
he added then in Czech.
Although I laughed with the audience, after a moment it struck me whether he somewhat belittled their opening number, whose execution was undoubtedly very demanding. And then it occurred to me that I shouldn't think about it that way, because it's simply just a joke.
New Theme Song
Marek Eben then tried to explain to the audience the biggest mystery of this year's event. How is it possible that it's the 60th anniversary when the festival first took place over 80 years ago?
No… actually, he didn't even try.
"Don't worry about it, it's complicated,"
he said with a smile.
I have a feeling that maybe he doesn't even know himself. But does it matter? No.
And what is the best gift the festival can actually receive from us, the viewers?
"The biggest gift will be when you go home happy,"
stated Eben.
So simple, concise, and beautiful at the same time.
The traditional segment followed – the release of a new jingle. Every year, KVIFF has a new one, and this year was no exception. To this day, I don't know why Mr. Eben calls it a jingle – when it's more like a promotional video spot, which, of course, doesn't sound as sexy. Jingle evokes some kind of musical background for me.
This year, Stellan Skarsgard, the recipient of the President's Award, appeared in it, using his award as an anchor on a small boat. The video, as always, is in black and white.
Complication with the Script
When Eben was reading the thank-you notes to the sponsors, he hesitated for a moment. He suddenly paused, as if he had received some direction from the control room or there were technical difficulties.
“Did I say something? No, then it's fine…” and he continued.
This was followed by an invitation to the stage for international guests including Hollywood actor Jesse Eisenberg, showing old clips and speeches by the festival director Kryštof Mucha and its artistic director Karel Ocha.
Then a montage of films featuring actress Maggie Gyllenhaal was played, who received the president's award and later gave an emotional speech on stage. During her speech, it was mentioned that she studied in the Czech Republic, praised the spa wafers, and also demonstrated to the audience what she could say in Czech — with an English accent, she said “dobrý den,” “děkuju,” and “dala bych si jedno pivo,” which naturally made the audience laugh. She also mentioned Jiří Bartoška.
When Gyllenhaal left and Marek Eben was supposed to take the stage again, he visibly seemed uneasy, and the sound of him flipping through the script was heard on the microphone. The popular host then explained that guests speaking at the podium occasionally have the habit of rearranging the pages of his script and that once one guest even left with the script. With this explanation, he once again showed his professionalism — where inexperienced hosts would panic, he remained calm and handled the situation with humor.
Eyes Brimming with Tears
Then, a spot with director Věra Chytilová, who is having a renewed premiere of her film Kopytem sem, kopytem tam at the festival, was screened.
And just like with Gyllenhaal, a montage of films featuring Dustin Hoffman followed. When he arrived on stage, he was so moved that his eyes were visibly brimming with tears. Apparently, the organizers had been trying to get Hoffman to the festival for a long time. Eben referred to him as "the legend of all legends." He received the festival president's award for lifetime achievement in world cinema. Before his speech, Hoffman unexpectedly sat on a chair at the drums behind Eben and enjoyed the unrelenting applause.
He had his speech written on paper. When he opened it, he realized he wasn't wearing his glasses. So he smiled and searched for them for a moment.
After his heartfelt speech, Eben announced a half-hour break, thus concluding the official opening ceremony.
However, one person was missing from this year's opening – the Minister of Culture Oto Klempíř.
Source: Original text
