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It is one of the minor miracles in the world of international art-house cinema that the movies of Romania’s iconoclast and idiosyncratic director Radu Jude have found a wider audience. Among the directors of the Romanian New Wave, which kicked off two decades ago and shows no sign of ebbing, Jude is arguably the most radical and unpredictable. He’s made a coming-of-age comedy (The Happiest Girl in the World), an historic western (Aferim!), a Kafka-esque docudrama (Uppercase Print), a Covid-era sex satire (Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, which won the Berlinale Golden Bear in 2021), a three-hour black-and-white feminist drama (Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World), and a found-footage documentary, Eight Postcards from Utopia, assembled exclusively out of post-socialist Romanian advertisements.

Jude’s latest, Kontinental ’25 is another stylistic swerve, an absurdist comedy-drama about Romania’s housing crisis and the country’s conflicted middle class.

The Czech government has approved an uplift to the country’s production incentive for feature films and series and has also introduced a brand new rebate for animation, VFX and post-production.

The Czech Republic’s upper house, the Senate, passed the much-anticipated amendment to the current Audiovisual Act on Tuesday (December 11), and the changes will come into effect on January 1, 2025.

It sees the introduction of a new 35% incentive for animation and digital production without live action.

The changes to the production incentive will also see the refund on eligible expenses for traditionally produced projects such as feature films and fictional...

The Czech government has approved an uplift to the country’s production incentive for feature films and series and has also introduced a brand new rebate for animation.

The Czech Republic’s upper house, the Senate, passed the much-anticipated amendment to the current Audiovisual Act on Tuesday (December 11), and the changes will come into effect on January 1, 2025.

It sees the introduction of a new 35% incentive for animation and digital production without live action.

The changes to the production incentive programme will also see the refund on eligible expenses for traditionally produced projects such as feature films and fictional series increasing from 20% to 25%.

Earlier this year,...

If the prospect of several days alone with your loving family over the holidays fills you with a sense of dread, or if you just need some me time to fill those lazy winter days, The Hollywood Reporter‘s annual pick of the best binge-worthy international TV series has you covered. Take a break with an intoxicating Japanese-French family drama about wine and power, deconstruct the life and work of Franz Kafka with in a new Austrian mini-series or dive deep into the cutthroat world of international fishing with a new Norwegian comedy that’s Succession… with salmon.

All This I Will Give to You Where to Watch: MHz Choice

A deliciously twisty French murder mystery that’s like a sophisticated, sexier version of a British country-house drama. Follow Manuel, the widowed husband of a secretly wealthy man, as he unravels a complex family mystery with a retired cop. Expect cold aristocrats,...

Jinjer have announced their fifth studio album, Duél, out February 7th via Napalm Records. The new single “Kafka” can be streamed now.

The track showcases the many facets of the Ukrainian band’s sound, opening with gnarled guitar arpeggios that are deceptively intricate and woven around a mathy drum arrangement. The song holds to this style for the first half of the four-minute runtime before Jinjer bring the metal at the drop, with Tatiana Shmayluk’s melodic vocals suddenly becoming raspy howls.

“Being an artist is sometimes beautiful but most of the time it’s brutal… as our art is dissected word for word and ripped apart note by note, we‘re expected to be on point all-the-time … and when we aren’t, we are scandalized,” Shmayluk said of “Kafka,” which is inspired by the titular Austrian-Czech novelist.

She continued: “A true artist is vulnerable but the crowd is most...

A string of auteur directors – from Orson Welles to Steven Soderbergh to Lorenza Mazzetti – have fallen for Kafka’s visionary brilliance, with always-intriguing results

There are director’s cuts, special editions, redux versions – and then there’s Mr Kneff. Normally, a recut film is the prerogative of a film-maker who feels abused by the studio they worked for, or for whom a streaming platform has given the opportunity to enlarge on their “vision”; but this isn’t quite the case for Steven Soderbergh. In 1991 Soderbergh released Kafka, a tricksy fiction-slash-biopic, which – notoriously – managed to extract nearly all the heat from a film-making career that had got off to a stellar start with the Palme d’Or-winning Sex, Lies and Videotape. Soderbergh, though, is nothing if not a trier, and after years of tinkering, has completed Mr Kneff, a whole new version of Kafka, under a whole new title.

Mr Kneff...

"Please Hold" blends futuristic technology with real-life injustices faced by prisoners in America. Mateo's nightmarish journey through an automated court system highlights the consequences of uncaring AI. The film serves as a chilling reflection of the harsh reality many people, especially in the Latino community, face in the criminal justice system.

Please Hold is a 2020 short film that combines the real injustices prisoners in America face with the almost surreal experience of trying to navigate modern society's technological "advances". Mexican American filmmaker K.D. Dvila made her directorial debut with Please Hold after spending the first part of her career as a writer, working on the 2017 movie The Labyrinth and writing 13 episodes of Salvation. Many major movie directors have made short films and if the success of Please Hold means anything, Dvila will likely have a feature film of her own soon.

The film was nominated for Best Live Action...

Kaiju No. 8 is one of the best new anime of 2024. It has compelling characters, a driving plot, and a few overarching mysteries that make it endlessly watchable. Kaiju no. 8 is also full of incredible twists that no fans saw coming.

Season 1 gives audiences some fairly large twists throughout its run. Each of them elevates the story to make it more enticing. Plus, it adds to the tension of each episode. The biggest plot twists are things that add to the lore of the story or help develop a character. There are many subtle twists in Season 1 of Kaiju No. 8, but these are the best.

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Related Fans of Kaiju Shouldn't Bother With Kaiju No 8

Despite its title, Kaiju No 8 fails to represent an iconic sub-genre that fans have loved for several decades.

Kafka Is A Kaiju Kafka Is Kaiju No.

Mark Cousins’ portrait of a British modernist painter, “A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things,” took the Karlovy Vary Film Festival top prize Saturday, winning over a jury that included Christine Vachon and Geoffrey Rush with its perceptive take on art and seeing.

Cousins said the film’s subject, painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, “lived completely, truly and utterly – let’s try to do that.”

Norwegian divorce story “Loveable” won the Crystal Globe jury prize, as well as three other awards categories, taking home the Fipresci, ecumenical and Europa Cinemas Label prizes with its nuanced look at a woman morphing into a new life.

Director Lilja Ingolfsdottir scored big with her first feature-length drama with “Loveable,” telling the audience at the Hotel Thermal Grand Hall the story helped her “find barriers we have built against connections.”

The directing prize went to Nelicia Low for the Singapore/Taiwan/Poland production “Pierce,” an intricate account...

The 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (June 28 to July 6) boasted not one but two competitions, the Crystal Globe and Proxima, presided over by the festival president Jiří Bartoška, artistic director Karel Och, and executive director Kryštof Mucha. The festival is the main summer event in the country, which attracts many sponsors and patrons who want to attend, and faces none of the financial hardships of such festivals as Berlin, Toronto, and Sundance. 130 films are shown, with 140,000 tickets sold. There is no room for growth, given the limited venues, from the many screening rooms at the festival hub, the Hotel Thermal, where juror Christine Vachon mixed Negronis for her fellow jurors between screenings, to the colorful arthouse Kino Drahomira, named after a revered Czech woman director.

The Eastern European festival falls between Cannes and Venice, and programs many films in its Crystal Globe Competition that did not make the cut at Cannes,...

After 15 years of invitations, Steven Soderbergh finally arrived at the Czech Republic’s Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad) for its International Film Festival that celebrated its 58th anniversary this year. The multi-hyphenate, who likes to shoot and edit his films under the pseudonyms Peter Andrews and Mary Ann Bernard (the names of his parents), had two reasons for coming. One, he was closer after moving to London; and two, he wanted to show his sophomore film, 1991’s “Kafka” starring Jeremy Irons and Alec Guinness. He also wanted to present a shorter silent version with a new soundtrack, “Mr. Kneff,” also as part of the festival’s Kafka retrospective. The director gave witty intros to both films and also submitted to a thorough 90-minute grilling by journalist Neil Young.

Many people never saw “Kafka,” which was trounced by critics as the follow-up to “Sex, Lies and Videotape.” Written by Soderbergh collaborator Lem Dobbs,...

Steven Soderbergh is taking a page from Taylor Swift’s playbook.

“People laugh that there is a college class being taught about her and I go, ‘There should be,'” the director tells Variety during a roundtable interview at Karlovy Vary Film Festival. “What she is doing, the way she is doing it… Nobody has ever done this before. The amount of control she has taken over. She is relentless.”

He continues, “These stories about doing the whole show on a treadmill, just to make sure she can do it?! It’s a success story and I am fascinated by that. [Screenwriter] David Koepp took his daughter to see the show and said, ‘You cannot believe what it’s like to be there.’ I would go if I could. There aren’t any tickets! But I watched the film.”

The Eras Tour is also on his mind when developing new work.

Steven Soderbergh has been all over the Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary in recent days. On Monday, he shared his takes and insights on such topics as AI, sex scenes, movie release windows, Hollywood’s current “correction,” new projects and even the success of Taylor Swift with a group of reporters.

The prolific director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer is a featured guest at the 58th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) that is running through Saturday. In its Franz Kafka retrospective, timed to the 100th anniversary of the author’s death in June 1924, Soderbergh is introducing his two films about Kafka, namely Kafka (1991) and its 2021 re-edit Mr. Kneff — both starring Jeremy Irons as a set-upon insurance man and writer.

The filmmaker has been warmly welcomed by appreciative festival audiences. In between other appearances, he took time for a roundtable conversation with members of the press that...

Even the most seasoned film festival goers need a bit of a break in between a busy schedule of competition and special screenings in dark cinemas every now and then. In Karlovy Vary, you may actually spot one of the celebrities who have flocked to the Czech spa town over the years while fueling up and getting ready for more movie fun.

Whether you crave an espresso, a latte, or other hot or cold drinks, whether you need a sweet pick-me-up or not, whether you need some alone time or schmoozing time – the town has attendees of the annual Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) covered, spoiling them with a range of choices.

Kviff has an official coffee and coffeeshop of the festival this year, Caffè Vergnano Lounge, which is open daily from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. near the Kviff.TV Park. “Here, you can get coffees and other drinks,...

The 58th Karlovy Vary Film International Film Festival kicked off with a very personal milestone, commemorating 30 years since the event was taken over by the programming team of Jiří Bartoška and the late journalist Eva Zaoralová. The veteran actor, now 77, gave the festival cause for concern last year when health problems threatened to keep him away from the event. This year, however, Bartoška was the main focus of the traditionally baroque opening ceremony, taking us back to 1994 with memories of Nelson Mandela, TV’s Friends, cinema’s Pulp Fiction, and the first iterations of PlayStation and Bluetooth technology.

There followed a lengthy tribute to Bartoška at work, welcoming a veritable cavalcade of stars; names so famous that for a few minutes, it was possible to forget the festival’s unfortunate tendency to stick with Hollywood stars a tad too long into their wilderness periods (Mel Gibson and Johnny Depp spring...

Viggo Mortensen, Clive Owen and Daniel Brühl will each receive the President’s Award at this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff), which runs from June 28-July 6.

Actor-director Mortensen’s second outing as a director, The Dead Don’t Hurt, plays as the opening film of this year’s festival. The film world premiered at Toronto last year and follows on from his acclaimed 2020 feature directing debut Falling. The Dead Don’t Hurt’s premiere comes ahead of its July 4 theatrical launch in the Czech Republic through Aerofilms.

British actor Clive Owen will receive the President’s Award at Kviff’s closing ceremony.

Viggo Mortensen, Clive Owen, and Daniel Brühl will each receive Karlovy Vary’s Honorary Presidents Award during this year’s edition, which runs from June 28 to July 6.

Mortensen will receive the award at the festival’s opening ceremony before a screening of his latest directorial effort The Dead Don’t Hurt. The pic is Mortensen’s second outing as director and will serve as the festival’s opening film. As with his debut, he wrote the screenplay, acted as director and producer, composed the music, and performed one of the lead roles.

Owen and Brühl will receive their honors later during the festival. To celebrate their honors Owen will show his 2004 film Closer while Brühl will screen his directorial debut Next Door.

Veteran filmmaker Steven Soderbergh will also be in town to present two of his films, Kafka and Mr. Kneff, which are being shown as part of the festival’s Kafka retrospective,...

Viggo Mortensen, Daniel Brühl and Clive Owen will receive Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) honors at the Czech fest’s 58th edition this year.

Organizers revealed on Wednesday that actor-director Mortensen will receive the Kviff President’s Award on opening night, June 28, and also present his feminist western The Dead Don’t Hurt, which he wrote and directed, as the opening film of the fest.

German-Spanish star Brühl will also be a guest of the fest, receiving the Kviff President’s Award and presenting his directorial debut Next Door. And British actor Owen will, at the closing ceremony on July 6, receive the Kviff President’s Award.

Last year’s Kviff honorees included Alicia Vikander, Ewan McGregor and Russell Crowe, who also got the bucolic spa town of Karlovy Vary rocking when he showed off his musical chops in an open-air concert with his band Indoor Garden Party.

This year, its 25th year on the scene,...

Opening night at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival often lures a top talent to accept the Kviff President’s Award, in this case Viggo Mortensen, the writer/director/star of his sophomore film, western “The Dead Don’t Hurt,” co-starring Vicky Krieps, which will open in the Czech Republic on July 4.

Every year, Kviff presents a new black-and-white short film at the opening night ceremony, to serve as a trailer of sorts for the festival. This year’s main protagonist is Oscar-winning actor and producer Benicio del Toro (“Traffic”), recipient of the Kviff President’s Award in 2022. The short film was written and directed by long-time creator of Kviff trailers Ivan Zachariáš. Del Toro took time off while shooting Wes Anderson’s new film in Berlin to work with Zachariáš, who collaborated on the trailer with cinematographer Jan Velický and editor Filip Malásek, and composed the music.

“We are glad...

The most anticipated anime series of Spring 2024, Kaiju No. 8, has made an unexpected announcement that has gotten mixed reactions from fans. According to the official account of Kaiju No. 8, the series is getting a game that will follow the same storyline as the anime series. However, no official date has been announced yet.

Kaiju No. 8 The Game | Akatsuki Games

The key visuals and the trailer for the game have been released, and they will be available for PC and mobile. Kaiju No. 8 has followed the trend just like Solo Leveling, Jujutsu Kaisen, etc. But the problem with that is that none of the games released by popular anime series have managed to make a name for themselves, which disappoints fans.

As soon as the news about Kaiju No. 8 getting a video game was announced, fans took to X to share their mixed emotions regarding the game.

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) on Monday added a David Lynch short and an episode of his iconic series Twin Peaks to its Franz Kafka retrospective and unveiled the program of its Out of the Past section, featuring classic, cult, rare and “unfairly overlooked” films, screened in their original or restored versions.

Among the highlights are restored versions of Wim Wenders’ 1984 neo-Western drama Paris, Texas and Two English Girls, François Truffaut’s 1971 period drama about a love triangle.

The Wenders film is part of a three-film program presented by Alexandre O. Philippe, the creator of documentary essays about the history of cinema, offering perspectives on the American landscape in cinema. He will also present his 2021 documentary The Taking (2021), which explores American mythology through the socio-philosophical dimensions of the American landscape.

Also part of the Out of the Past program is Let’s Get Lost, Bruce Weber’s documentary about...

100 years after the death of Franz Kafka, a new mini-series aims to dive beneath the surface of an author who remains enigmatic even as his influence on the culture continues to grow.

Kafka, an ambitious German-language meta-drama written by Austrian writer/director David Schalko (Braunschlag) and best-selling author David Kehlmann (Measuring the World), is based on Reiner Stach’s exhaustive three-volume biography of Kafka and weaves together the writer’s life and work, finding the connections and gaps between the two.

Schalko, who spent more than a decade developing the series, and directs all six episodes, says he was well aware of the perils of trying to capture Kafka on screen. “Everything we think we know about Kafka has become a cliche,” says Schalko.

Kafka

There is a temptation to depict Franz Kafka, the writer, as a “Kafkaesque” character, and his work as simply a heightened reflection of his life.

International buyers are swooning over The Glory of Life, a very un-Kafkaesque love story about Franz Kafka and his last romance.

The German-language drama, from directors Judith Kaufmann and Georg Maas, follows the romance between Franz Kafka (Sabin Tambrea) and Dora Diamant (Henriette Confurius) in the final year of the famed writer’s life, before his death from tuberculosis at age 40.

Unlike most adaptations of Kafka’s work — from Orson Welles’ The Trial (1962) to Steven Soderbergh’s Kafka (1991) to The Castle (1997) from Michael Haneke — angst and existential dread are mostly absent from The Glory of Life. Based on the best-selling novel by Michael Kumpfmüller, the film focuses instead on what the directors’ claim was the happiest period in Kafka’s life.

Menemsha Films has picked up North American rights to The Glory of Life, with Condor taking France, Wanted Cinema acquiring the movie in Italy, Divisa Red in Spain and...

The legendary Jeremy Irons recently took the stage at the Hollywood Bowl to perform the beloved "Be Prepared" song from The Lion King to mark the iconic Disney animated movie's 30th Anniversary. The now 75-year-old veteran actor voiced the film's primary antagonist, Scar.

DiscussingFilm shared a clip of Irons singing the iconic song on its X (formerly known as Twitter) account. The Lion King actor heartily belts out the song on the colorful stage with all the energy of a world-class singer in his prime. "Be Prepared" is performed as a musical number in The Lion King by Irons' Scar, who desires to be the king of the Pride Lands by killing his brother Mufasa and his nephew Simba. The lion motivates an army of nefarious hyenas with the classic song to enlist their help in achieving his treacherous end. Elton John and Tim Rice wrote the song Irons performed alongside Jim Cummings,...

When Kaiju No. 8 debuted in April 2024, fans had a lot of expectations from the series, as the series was already successful in the manga industry. Eventually, the anime series lived up to its expectations and became one of the best action anime series of the current year. However, Kaiju No. 8 brought with it a new twist, which is not often seen in the anime world.

Kafka – Kaiju No. 8

The twist was introduced through the protagonist of the series, Kafka Hibino. Kafka was a cleaner for Monster Sweeper Inc., but he always wanted to join the Defense Force to eradicate the Kaiju, or “monsters,” that have infested the world and are wreaking havoc. But later on, he himself becomes a Kaiju, and the story becomes more and more interesting.

The twist that Kafka brought with him was that he defied the physical stereotypes of the Shonen main character.

ChaiFlicks, the prime streaming service for Jewish storytelling, has acquired the rights to premium Austrian limited series “Kafka” from Orf Enterprise, the global distribution arm of Austrian pubcaster Orf.

The six-part series is due to launch June 6 in North America for ChaiFlicks, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the death of the world celebrated Bohemian author Franz Kafka.

Lending his features to the Prague-born author of “The Metamorphosis” is Swish actor Joel Basman. The Orf original series is helmed by David Schalko (“Braunschlag”) who co-wrote the script with German-Austrian novelist and playwright Daniel Kehmann, based on the definitive Kafka biography by Reiner Stach.

The show chronicles the life, love affairs, and friendships of the German-speaking Kafka viewed as one of the most influential writers of all time, whose name led to the familiar term ‘Kafkaesque,’ referring to the surreal, confusing and almost nightmarish situations described in Kafka’s novels.

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has announced its first wave of program details for its upcoming 58th edition, which is set to take place from June 28 through July 6, 2024. The Czech festival, widely considered to be the most prestigious film festival in Eastern Europe, is set to honor one of the nation’s most famous writers with a new retrospective titled “Franz Kafka and the Cinema.”

The series is set to feature screenings of a wide range of films inspired by the Czech novelist, who famously wove themes of alienation and existential angst into cryptic novels that often flirted with surrealism. Some films, like Orson Welles’ “The Trial” are direct adaptations of Kafka’s writings; but the series also includes movies about Kafka’s life, and films like Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours” that were influenced by Kafka’s ideas.

“For decades, Kafka’s oeuvre has functioned as a continuing provocation to filmmakers,...

The Karlovy Vary Film Festival and Variety have teamed up to honor Francine Maisler, one of the world’s most respected casting directors, whose recent credits include “Dune: Part Two,” “The Bikeriders,” “Challengers,” “Civil War” and “Joker: Folie à Deux.”

Maisler has worked on more than 70 feature films and is a recipient of 15 Artios Awards from the Casting Society of America, including for “Marriage Story” in 2020 and “Don’t Look Up” in 2021. As well as working with director Denis Villeneuve on “Dune: Part Two,” “Dune,” “Arrival” and “Sicario,” her other films include Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life” and “Knight of Cups,” and Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “The Revenant” and “Birdman.” In 2022, she won a Primetime Emmy Award for her work on HBO’s “Succession.”

As part of its homage, Karlovy Vary will hold a special screening of one of the films which Maisler worked on. Maisler will also give a public master class,...

The Karlovy Vary Festival will pay tribute to one of the Czech Republic’s most famous sons with a retrospective of film adaptations of the work of Franz Kafka from some of the greatest names in cinema. To mark the centenary of Kafka’s death, the festival will screen a series of films directly adapted from, or inspired by, the literary master of angst.

The retrospective will include such classics as Orson Welles’s The Trial (1962), Martin Scorsese’s Kafkaesque New York dramedy After Hours (1985) and Federico Fellini’s Intervista; Steven Soderbergh’s Kafka (1991) and its 2021 re-edit Mr. Kneff — both starring Jeremy Irons as a set-upon insurance man and writer — alongside lesser-known adaptations, including Jan Němec’s Metamorphosis, a German TV movie version of Kafka’s famous short story. Other highlights include Ousmane Sembene’s Senegalese feature The Money Order (1968) and Kôji Yamamura’s animated short Franz Kafka’s a Country Doctor (2007).

“For decades,...

A small piece of contemporary cinema history was written last night in St Andrews, Scotland when Steven Soderbergh sat down with Joe and Anthony Russo on stage at the Sands International Film Festival to discuss their 2002 collaboration Welcome to Collinwood.

Produced by Soderbergh and George Clooney who also stars alongside William H. Macy, Isaiah Washington, Sam Rockwell, Luis Guzmán, and Patricia Clarkson, Welcome to Collinwood was the second feature from the Russos following their debut feature Pieces, which bombed out of Slamdance in 1997.

“There was zero interest in the film from anybody but this man over here,” Anthony said of Pieces, pointing towards Soderbergh. The sex, lies and videotape filmmaker had been present at the doomed Pieces screening at Slamdance and reached out to the directing duo to impart some wisdom.

“It was insanely ambitious and dense,” Soderbergh told Deadline’s Mike Fleming Jr, who moderated the talk, of Pieces.

French actress Juliette Binoche (“The English Patient”) will be the next president of the European Film Academy Board, succeeding Polish director Agnieszka Holland (“Europa”) in the honorary role. Holland was the first female president of the board.

Binoche was unanimously proposed by the board members after Holland decided to step down. Following a formal approval process, which historically has been a mere formality, Binoche’s appointment will officially begin on May 1, 2024. The presidential role is primarily symbolic.

Holland, who served as chairwoman of the board until 2019, became president in 2021, succeeding German director Wim Wenders. Holland plans to fully dedicate her time to making films.

Holland’s “Europa” won the Golden Globe and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Her 2023 film “Green Border” won the Special Jury Prize at Venice International Film Festival.

Mike Downey, the current chair of the board, and Academy CEO Matthijs Wouter Knol said...