EFP with the section Variety Critics’ Choice: Europe Now! at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (30 June 8 July 2006)

Unconventional and surprising, subtle and entertaining: the Variety Critics’ Choice: Europe Now! section of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (30 June 8 July in the Czech Republic) shows European cinema in all its diversity and vitality. Now for the eighth time the international film business magazine Variety, the Karlovy Vary Film Festival and European Film Promotion (EFP) are working closely together to present this extremely popular showcase. The initiative is supported financially by the MEDIA Programme of the EU and the ten participating EFP members.

Variety’s film critics Derek Elley, Eddie Cockrell and Leslie Felperin have again chosen ten remarkable current films by up-and-coming young European directors, including six debut films. The directors will present their own films on two days of the festival 2 and 3 July.

In the meantime the Variety Critics’ Choice: Europe Now! section has firmly established itself in the programme of this important and extremely popular A-festival. The response to this showcase is enormous and year for year it is enthusiastically celebrated by the young festival audience. All the participants are impressed by the international marketing impulse created by the presentation of their films in this section and in the magazine Variety itself.

Pilar Torre, Deputy Director of ICAA (Instituto de la Cinematografía y de las Artes Audiovisuales) in Spain, has with the Spanish film Isolated by David Marqués for the 7th time a film represented in the Variety Critics’ Choice: Europe Now! showcase and reckons with a positive marketing effect: “As an A-festival, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival offers an excellent platform to market our film internationally. The presentation, as well as the selection and promotion by Variety, is the best publicity and draws the attention of the international film industry and the public to the film and its director.”

Steven Gaydos, Executive Editor of Variety, comments with regard to the Variety Critics’ Choice: “The production and distribution challenges for European filmmakers have never been greater, but at the same time these emerging artists have never been in a better position to win over an audience that is often overwhelmed by big-money film marketing machines and by the enormous increase in choices on offer.”

Film selection for Karlovy Vary Variety Critics’ Choice: Europe Now! 2006

Title, Director, Country, Film
Baba’s Cars by Rafael Edholm, Sweden, 2nd film
Evil by Yorgos Noussias, Greece, 1st film
FC Venus by Joona Tena, Finland, 1st film
Fresh Air by Ágnes Kocsis, Hungary, 1st film
Hotel Harabati by Brice Cauvin, France, 1st film
I Am by Dorota Kêdzierzawska, Poland, 4th film
Isolated by David Marqués, Spain, 2nd film
KussKuss Your Happiness Depends on Me by Sören Senn, Germany/Switzerland, 1st film
Schnitzel Paradise by Martin Koolhoven, The Netherlands, 4th film
Shut Up and Shoot Me by Steen Agro, Czech Republic/UK, 1st film

The films in this series will be presented by the respective directors who make up the delegations accompanying the Variety Critics’ Choice. For more information on the selected films please visit www.efp-online.com.

“Let’s rock!” is once again the word after the huge success of last year’s party organised by EFP and Variety following the Variety Critics’ Choice. Back on stage with their musical creativity will be The Festival Band, headed by the three festival directors Stefan Kitanov (Director of Sofia International Film Festival), Stefan Laudyn (Director of Warsaw International Film Festival) and Štefan Uhrík (Director of Forum of Independents in Karlovy Vary). Guest singers will be the Czech actress Zuzana Stivínová and actress Maria Jarvenhelmi from Finland.