First Impressions: Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2026
KVIFF
2026 marks two very special milestones for Czechia’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival: its 80th anniversary since first being held in 1946 and its 60th edition overall.
While the KVIFF might not boast as much star power as its European competitors like Berlin or Cannes, it is the second-oldest film festival in the world after Venice and is ranked among the most prestigious, according to the International Federation of Film Producers Association, with its major competition vying for the Crystal Globe, the festival’s biggest prize. Notable guests at this year’s KVIFF include Festival President’s Awards recipients Jesse Eisenberg and Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, and Czech actress Magda Vášáryová. Additionally, three-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson will receive the honorary Crystal Globe for his enduring contributions to world cinema.
Having never attended the festival before, I headed to the enchanting Bohemian spa town with few expectations, and boy, have I been pleasantly surprised by what I have encountered thus far: KVIFF has an almost summer camp feeling, with industry professionals and enthusiastic cinephiles co-mingling to create a raucous and carefree vibe that is far from the stressful, frenzied chaos you experience at other heavy-hitting festivals. Surrounded by Neo-Baroque architecture, the town truly feels like a beautiful fairy tale, particularly when considering the people who have been drawn to its famed thermal baths for hundreds of years, many of whom were staples of historical royalty, including Queen Victoria and Peter the Great. While I am still laboring to figure out the festival’s ticketing system (none of them are seamless), I have been able to scoop tickets for many new discoveries and favorites from other festivals. Continue reading to check out some of my first impressions of the movies I have screened at this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival:
‘Chica Checa’
Directed by: Šimon Holý / Czech Republic, France, Slovak Republic, 2026, 97 min
Section: Crystal Globe Competition
Silk Films
Authentic, gentle, and at times hilarious, Chica Checa feels too light-hearted throughout its runtime while also delivering a clear statement about the limitless power of a mother’s love. The movie follows Zdena (Pavla Tomicová), a middle-aged provincial Czech woman who is stuck in the past after a divorce and her mother’s declining health. When her twenty-something son Lukáš (Jan Cina) returns from Paris to their village to see his grandmother before she passes, he tells his mother for the first time that he is gay and makes a living as a drag queen. As these revelations alter Zdena’s typical routine, she must come to terms with life’s constant evolution, possibly for the very first time.
Intriguingly, Chica Checa does not culminate with any shocking melodrama as Zdena comes to understand her son’s sexuality, instead choosing to focus on the ways in which tight-knit families can endure such tribulations thanks to unconditional love. As Queer experiences continue to be challenged not only in the Czech Republic but across the globe, narratives like this one become ever more crucial to explore in cinema.
3/5
‘Everybody Digs Bill Evans’
Directed by: Grant Gee / Ireland, United Kingdom, 2026, 103 min
Section: Horizons
Cowtown Pictures Limited
Winner of the Best Director Prize at the Berlinale earlier this year, Everybody Digs Bill Evans is adapted from the novel Intermission, which follows legendary jazz musician Bill Evans (Norwegian actor Anders Danielsen Lie with an impeccable American accent) through the tragedies he faces during the latter half of his life, all kicked off by the unexpected death of his bass player in 1961.
Stylistically, the film departs from the conventions of similar-sounding musician biopics and delivers flashes of flavor representative of the 60s-80s that never feel in discordance with one another, choosing to concentrate on one of the jazz icon’s moments of respite rather than the soaring highs of his career. Performance-wise, everyone nails it, from Bill Pullman as Bill’s psychologically struggling brother to the matriarch of their family, played by the iconic Laurie Metcalf as their wise-cracking yet caring mother. Everybody Digs Bill Evans works as a unique portrait of a tormented creative mind. If U.S. distributor Cohen Media plays its cards correctly, I could see this movie having a momentous festival tour as the year continues, and possibly an influential awards campaign.
4/5
‘The Dreamed Adventure’
Directed by: Valeska Grisebach / Germany, France, Bulgaria, Austria, 2026, 164 min
Section: Horizons
Bernhard Keller
Do not get me wrong, The Dreamed Adventure flaunts a fascinatingly intricate screenplay and impressive performances from non-actors to boot, but the nearly three-hour slow Western/social-realist crime drama felt like a painful endurance test: I kept waiting for the gears to really start turning to no avail. Set in a small dusty town situated on the Bulgarian border near Greece and Turkey, the movie delves into the post-Communist crime gangs that used such areas as prime trafficking locations for humans, drugs, etc, while also studying the imbalances of class and gender dynamics in such places.
Yana Radeva stars as Veska, an archeologist who returns for a dig in her hometown only to become re-embroiled with some of the shady, mostly male figures from her past. Like the Lone Ranger of morality in such a place of degradation, Veska daringly sticks her neck out for what she believes is best for her birthplace, only to descend into a spiral of corruption. The Dreamed Adventure, a recent winner of the Cannes 2026 Jury Prize, depicts an often-overlooked part of the world with great care, which I can absolutely appreciate, but that does not necessarily make for a riveting experience.
3/5
‘The Man I Love’
Directed by: Ira Sachs / USA, 2026, 97 min
Section: Horizons
Big Cheeks Projects
I have been looking forward to Sachs’ latest since it premiered in Competition at Cannes a few months ago, but I must say I was a bit disappointed, particularly after loving the director’s last two works, Passages and Peter Hujar’s Day Off. Like the latter film, The Man I Love sketches a gorgeous vision of its period New York City setting, but its narrative structure feels like a reworking of Passages, without the powerful central performance to carry the movie.
An all-too commonly wooden Rami Malek stars as Jimmy, an avant-garde theater actor whose last performance might be on the horizon due to the quickening progression of his AIDS diagnosis. Cared for by his devoted younger partner, Dennis (Tom Sturridge, who absolutely steals the show), Jimmy is rather wrapped up in his own narcissistic creative process, which eventually includes hooking up with the fresh-faced Vincent, who moves into the apartment above the couple, played by Luther Ford with a wounded and lonesome desperation.
While there is much to appreciate in the nuance with which Sachs and his normal co-writer Mauricio Zacharias bypass the stereotypes of depicting AIDS on the silver screen, it is hard to connect with the French-language production Jimmy pours himself into, and even more challenging to lock into Malek’s disappointing performance as the core of the movie. The Man I Love would feel much stronger without this, in my opinion, serious miscasting of its lead.