You are never too old to experience a first! Even if you are the world’s second-oldest film festival, behind the Venice Film Festival.
The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) celebrates its 60th edition in its 80th year from July 3 through July 11 this year, and it will do so with Hollywood stars in attendance and new film discoveries. The Czech festival has, over the decades, hosted all sorts of movies and celebrities.
But it will nonetheless get to revel in some debuts and firsts during its 2026 double anniversary edition beyond all its film premieres.
Here is a quick look at the first-evers set for KVIFF 2026.
First Film From Myanmar
Burmese writer-director Aung Phyoe is bringing the first-ever KVIFF film from Myanmar to this year’s competition lineup. His feature debut is entitled Fruit Gathering (Thit-thee Khu).
The cinematographer for the movie is Thaiddhi, with Emily Swe handling editing. The cast includes Nandar Myat Aung, Nandar Myint Lwin, Thida Soe Khant, Tin Tin Ei and Min Nyo. KVIFF promises an exploration of “how women’s desires survive in a country where intimacy and love between women remain socially unacceptable.”
The film is described as life in contemporary Myanmar seen through the eyes of two young women, which the fest said “can look quite oppressive.” They work at a textile factory in Yangon, the largest city in the country. “They face exhausting work, social repression and economic uncertainty,” reads a synopsis. “Although the grueling pace of everyday life stifles opportunities for human connection, both women continue to dream of intimacy and escape. When they grow closer, they set in motion the previously silenced fibers of their own emotions.”
First Colombian Film
‘Five Years, Four Months’
Courtesy of KVIFF
Writers-directors’ Esteban Hoyos García and Juan Miguel Gelacio Ramírez’s Five Years, Four Months (Cinco años, cuatro meses), a co-production between Colombia and the U.S., world premieres in KVIFF’s competition program, marking the first Colombian movie at the Czech festival.
“Not only did Martha lose her oldest son, but to this day, she doesn’t know what happened to him or his remains,” reads a synopsis on the KVIFF website. “After years of searching in vain, she meets Sandra, who offers her one more possibility, perhaps her last hope: to set out for a remote place where the line between the living and the dead is blurred. The directorial duo … gives voice to Colombian women who, after their children’s disappearance, took the search into their own hands. The film’s subdued, focused narrative calls attention to one of the most painful consequences of the country’s long-lasting armed conflict while portraying the search for peace and reconciliation in a place that has never witnessed a farewell.
The film, whose cast includes Jenny Nava and Carmiña Martínez, features cinematography by Paula Moreno Vergara, with editing by Gelacio Ramírez. Patra Spanou Film is handling sales.
A Plumber on the Proxima Competition Jury
In addition to its Crystal Globe competition, KVIFF also programs the Proxima competition, which is now in its fifth year, to provide a space for “bold works by young filmmakers and renowned auteurs alike” from around the globe. It replaced the East of the West competition, which was established in the 1990s with the goal of helping filmmakers from the former Eastern Bloc.
Among the Proxma jurors this year is Jakub Felcman, whom a KVIFF bio describes as “a Czech screenwriter, festival organizer, film critic, creative producer, director, and qualified plumber.” As a script editor, he collaborated on films by Jan Němec, Petr Václav, Radu Jude, and Corneliu Porumboiu.
But has the jury for Proxima, or any other KVIFF competition, for that matter, ever included a qualified plumber? Not that anyone at the festival can remember. “I am not aware of any trained craftsmen being on the jury before,” festival artistic director Karel Och tells THR. “I’m sure there have been a lot of people who could do things manually, both men and women, but I’m not sure about any trained plumbers. Jakub is an incredibly interesting person, and we’re happy he will join us.”
First Swiss Competition Film
‘A Happy Family’
Courtesy of KVIFF
Switzerland has been represented at KVIFF before. But no movie from the country has ever screened in its competition – until this year.
A Happy Family comes courtesy of director Jan-Erick Mack, who has previously made shorts and TV series Wilder and Davos 1917. He co-wrote the script with Anna Schinz, Nikita Afanasjew and Eva Kienholz. Schinz also stars, along with Michael Neuenschwander, Julia Jentsch, Alireza Bayram, Bettina Stucky and Martina Apostolova. Benjamin Fueter edited the film, using cinematography by Yunus Roy Imer.
This is another film exploring challenging themes and topics. “Niki works two jobs, but the little money she earns is barely enough to cover the living expenses for her and her two young children,” reads a synopsis on the festival website. “One day, when the children are left unsupervised, they accidentally set the kitchen on fire, and so the Swiss authorities place them with a foster family on the other side of the country. Though forbidden from contacting her children, Niki decides to track them down.”
The first Swiss film in the main KVIFF competition actually closes the circle in a sense for the festival and its long history. “This is a year of looking back with our two anniversaries, and at the first festival in August 1946, our colleagues actually screened 14 films in 14 days, and one of them was Swiss,” Och tells THR. That was Leopold Lindtberg’s refugee drama The Last Chance (Die Letzte Chance), which then went on to screen at Cannes, where it won the Grand Prix. “I’m really happy about this connection of a Swiss film at the first edition of the festival, and a Swiss film in competition now, 80 years later.”