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The 58th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff), which kicks off in the Czech spa town on Friday, promises a balanced diet of world premieres and other movies to discover, as well as hits and favorites from the recent festival circuit.

Central Europe’s biggest cinema fest and party once again dishes up a mix of regional and international films, including serious and some more fun fare, with a healthy serving of edgy, innovative, genre-bending, maybe somewhat outlandish-sounding movies, which it has often used as a special ingredient.

So without further ado, here is THR‘s look at some of the more unusual and offbeat-sounding films that Kviff will unspool for cineasts, tastemakers and industry insiders from June 28 through July 6.

Tiny Lights

Some filmmakers are proud of providing a new and different perspective on important topics and issues. Czech writer and director Beata Parkanová seems to have...

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival premiered a new trailer featuring Johnny Depp at the opening ceremony of its 2023 festival, which took place on Friday evening in the spa town outside Prague in the Czech Republic.

The trailer, along with other Kviff trailers, can be viewed in full here.

One of the most distinctive features of the Karlovy Vary festival is its trailers, which often feature Kviff honorees putting a playful spin on the festival’s top award, the Crystal Globe. Depp has not yet been recognized with such an award — a fact that he pokes fun at in the nearly three-minute clip when an interviewer asks the actor, “Literally everyone who goes gets an award, but you didn’t.”

Depp stares. “I didn’t?” he says.

“Two years ago, Johnny Depp received an immensely warm welcome from audiences and fans, thanks to which he has become a great supporter of ours,...

Ari Aster’s nearly-three hour journey Beau Is Afraid, described by the filmmaker himself as a “Jewish Lord of the Rings,” will arrive a bit earlier than expected. Now set to debut on April 14 in New York and LA before expanding wide the following week, including IMAX screens, we’ve received more context for what to expect thanks to a new series the director curated for Film at Lincoln Center.

Set to run April 14-20 at the NYC venue, selections include works by Alfred Hitchcock, Jiří Menzel, Guy Maddin, Albert Brooks, Nicholas Ray, Powell and Pressburger, Tsai Ming-liang, Jacques Tati, and more. “This eclectic and unexpected collection of masterworks drawn from seven decades of film history across a range of genres and production contexts sheds light on the inspirations and influences behind one of the most compelling directorial voices in Hollywood today,” notes the press release.

Aster also recently let...

It is fair to assume Criterion could plunder the world of licensed film to build an ultimate noir playlist; credit, then, for focusing sharp and nabbing deep cuts. The Criterion Channel’s November / Noirvember program will be headlined by “Fox Noir,” an eight-title program with Otto Preminger deep cut Fallen Angel, three by Henry Hathaway, Siodmak, Dassin, Kazan, and Robert Wise, and while retrospectives of Veronica Lake and John Garfield will bring some canon into the fold, I’m mostly thinking about that potential for discovery.

Following “Free Jazz,” Bob Hoskins, and Joyce Chopra programs, the other big series is a 30-year survey of Sony Pictures Classics: Sally Potter, Satoshi Kon, Panahi, Errol Morris, Almodóvar, Haneke, Mike Leigh, just a murderer’s row. Streaming premieres include 499 and A Night of Knowing Nothing, two recent epitomes of I Wish I Had Seen That; Criterion Editions comprise Cure, Brazil, Sullivan’s Travels,...

Producer Mike Finnell (Joe Dante’s long time producing partner) joins Josh and Joe to discuss a few of his favorite movies.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Avalanche (1978)

Airport (1970)

Earthquake (1974) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Matinee (1993) – Illeana Douglas’s trailer commentary, Dennis Cozzalio’s review, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Hollywood Boulevard (1976) – Jon Davison’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing

Deceived (1991)

Newsies (1992)

Milk Money (1994)

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979) – Eli Roth’s trailer commentary

The Howling (1981) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairings

Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)

Gremlins (1984) – Glenn Erickson’s 4K Blu-ray review, Tfh’s 30th anniversary celebration

Explorers (1985) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Innerspace (1987) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

The ’Burbs (1989) – Ti West’s trailer commentary, Tfh’s ’Burbs Mania

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

Small Soldiers (1998)

A Matter of Life and Death (1946) – Glenn Erickson’s...

Milan Kundera’s first novel, “The Joke,” won him critical praise and set the tone for a robust career in the spring of 1967, debuting just in time to catch the rising tide of freedom of expression that would reach its peak with the Prague Spring movement just a year later. Jaromil Jires crafted a screen adaptation of the book, in collaboration with the writer, which became one of the iconic films of the Czech New Wave.

The digital restoration of the film, part of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival’s program of preserving and promoting classic films, alongside the Czech National Film Archive, brings a crisp new copy of the film to audiences this summer. The chance to experience “The Joke” in a pristine state after extensive work by Prague post house Upp and studio Soundsquare has been a long-time coming.

When the Soviet crackdown, known as Normalization, rolled into...

Jiri Menzel, director of the Oscar-winning film “Closely Watched Trains,” died this weekend at the age of 82, according to a Facebook post by his wife.

“Dearest Jirka, I thank you for each and single day I could spend with you. Each was extraordinary. I am also grateful to you for the last three years, as hard as they were,” his wife wrote in her post.

Born in Prague in 1938, Menzel became one of the most famous members of the Czech New Wave of cinema in the 1960s, earning critical acclaim in the West while struggling to get his films released in his home country due to Communist censors. Many of his films were based on the novels of Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal, including “Closely Watched Trains,” a coming-of-age story about a teen who gets a job at a train station in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. Menzel’s adaptation won the Oscar for...

Oscar-winning Czech director, writer and actor Jiri Menzel died Saturday following a long illness.

Menzel’s death was confirmed by his wife, Olga, who posted the news on Instagram and Facebook late Sunday. Menzel was 82.

Winner of the Academy Award for best foreign-language film for the 1966 bittersweet Nazi occupation story “Closely Watched Trains,” Menzel was a leading figure of the Czech New Wave along with boundary-breaking directors such as Milos Forman and Vera Chytilova

Also nominated for a foreign-language Oscar in 1986 for the dark comedy “My Sweet Little Village,” Menzel was celebrated for his ironic takes on life, satires of authority figures and classic Czech character studies.

A longtime collaborator with Czech novelist Bohumil Hrabal, who wrote the book on which “Closely Watched Trains” was based, Menzel also adapted his books “Cutting it Short” and “Larks on a String.” The latter film, a 1969 send-up of young people forcibly recruited to a labor camp,...

Jiri Menzel, the Czech director who won the foreign-language film Oscar for 1966’s Closely Watched Trains, has died. He was 82.

Menzel’s wife, Olga Menzelova, posted the news on Instagram and Facebook on Sunday. She said that Menzel had died at home on Saturday. A cause of death was not given. Menzel was “the bravest among the brave,” she wrote, while commending his “courage, with [his] appetite and [his] will to live.”

A member of the Czech New Wave school of filmmakers alongside Milos Forman, Vera Chytilova and others, Closely Watched Trains was Menzel’s feature directorial debut ...

Ideally timed to draw domestic audiences back into Czech cinemas, loosely historical local-hero biopic “Havel” doesn’t let pesky facts get in the way of a good story. Multihyphenate Slávek Horák takes creative license with certain facts to stress the irony and absurdity of Václav Havel’s metamorphosis from celebrated playwright to banned and jailed human rights activist to eventual President of Czechoslovakia.

Concentrating more on Havel’s personal evolution (here prodded by the women in his life) and various emotional truths, who ultimately steps out of his comfort zone to become politically engaged. While some viewers may take issue with the simplifications, elisions and composites of Horák’s approach, others will be inspired once again by Havel’s courageous battle against oppression and the sacrifices he made.

A brief opening prologue set in the late 1980s lays out one of the central paradoxes of the protagonist’s life: that...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Bungalow (Ulrich Köhler)

Ulrich Köhler remains underseen—even by the standards of Berlin School brethren Christian Petzold and Maren Ade—and a 4K restoration of his 2002 debut Bungalow comes at the right time: its story of isolation, frayed connections, and romantic infatuation foreground an only idyllic-seeming summer getaway. 18 years on, not a shred of it feels dated or resolved, down to a conclusion that puts one in mind of ’70s American classics.

Where to Stream: Grasshopper Film

Czechoslovak New Wave

A period of creative fervor and political deconstruction like few others in cinema, Czechoslovak New Wave is now getting a spotlight on The Criterion Channel. Selections includes Black Peter (Miloš Forman,...

Director who was part of the ‘Czech film miracle’ in the 1960s but made his masterpieces in Hollywood

Ivan Passer, who has died aged 86, was one of the new wave of Czech film directors who emerged during the social and cultural democratisation of the mid-60s that afforded them unprecedented artistic freedom. With his childhood friend Miloš Forman, Passer co-wrote A Blonde in Love and The Firemen’s Ball (1967), and directed Intimate Lighting (1965), his brilliant feature film debut.

In that short period, Passer, Forman, Vera Chytilová, Jirí Menzel and Jan Němec, among others, made films that rejected the official state socialist-realist aesthetic and produced eclectic, highly assured features that captured the world’s attention.

Věra Chytilová shooting Time Is RelentlessIn Something Different (1963), housewife Vera has had it with her emotionally unavailable husband, exhausting chores, and child-rearing, so she starts an affair. A broken woman, she bursts into sporadic fits of giggling, scaring both men in her life. Prefiguring to some extent Alain Tanner's La salamandre, this laughter lifts the veil over the heroine's existential crisis, one so reluctant to be put into words and yet occasionally susceptible to movie images. Over the almost 50-year span of her career, we've heard Věra Chytilová's laugh so many times that it deserves to be catalogued. Daisies (1966) gave the censors plenty of reasons to ban it, but the derisive cackling of two girls at war with common sense would've sufficed. You can hear the sound as early as her student film Caterwauling (1960), made at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (Famu). There,...

Above: Italian 2-foglio for Loves of a Blonde (Miloš Forman, Czechoslovakia, 1965).As the 54th New York Film Festival winds to a close this weekend I thought it would be instructive to look back at its counterpart of 50 years ago. Sadly, for the sake of symmetry, there are no filmmakers straddling both the 1966 and the 2016 editions, though Agnès Varda (88 years old), Jean-Luc Godard (85), Carlos Saura (84) and Jirí Menzel (78)—all of whom had films in the 1966 Nyff—are all still making films, and Milos Forman (84), Ivan Passer (83) and Peter Watkins (80) are all still with us. There are only two filmmakers in the current Nyff who could potentially have been in the 1966 edition and they are Ken Loach (80) and Paul Verhoeven (78). The current Nyff is remarkably youthful—half the filmmakers weren’t even born in 1966 and, with the exception of Loach and Verhoeven, the old guard is now represented by Jim Jarmusch, Pedro Almodóvar,...

★★★★☆ Given the very nature of the Czechoslovak New Wave, it may seem obvious to note that certain films focused on the individual's relationship with the state. In the case of the second volume of Second Run's collected works from the movement, however, it is a necessity. Comprised of Milos Forman's A Blonde in Love (1965), Jan Nemec's The Party and the Guests (1966) and Jirí Menzel's Larks on a String (1990), this newly released box set brings together a trio of hugely important films from the distributor's catalogue.

Though the Czech New Wave of the sixties was not as addicted to anthology films as the Italians (any major Italian director could have called a film Eight and a Half, since they all directed episodes at one time or another), they did make Pearls of the Night (1966), which showcased nearly all the major graduates of the national film school, Famu (a.k.a. the Kids from Famu): Vera Chytilová, Jaromil Jires, Jirí Menzel, Jan Nemec and Evald Schorm.Three years later, Schorm was back, collaborating with new chums Jirí Brdecka and Milos Makovec on a raunchy supernatural triptych, Prague Nights. An international traveller picks up a strange woman, determined to enjoy a night of illicit passion during his Czech stopover. Driven through a green-tinted sepia night in her vintage limo, he's told three tales of murder, lust and the supernatural, and, at the end, as in any Amicus...

Film director who suffered censorship in her native Czechoslovakia for her 'anti-communist' films

Vera Chytilová, who has died aged 85, was one of the brightest of the new wave of film directors who emerged in Czechoslovakia in the mid-60s. Chytilová, Ivan Passer, Jan Nemec, Jirí Menzel, Ján Kadár and Miloš Forman were all products of Famu, the national film school in Prague. After the Russian invasion in 1968 put an end to the Prague Spring, Passer, Kadár and Forman left for the Us, and Nemec went into exile in western Europe. Menzel, who remained, was restricted despite repudiating his "anti-communist" films in 1974. But Chytilová, whose Daisies (1966) was the most adventurous and anarchic film of the period, was silenced.

Born in Ostrava, now in the Czech Republic, Chytilová had a strict Catholic upbringing. "I left that basic, personified faith," she later said. "It seemed like a crutch to me. I realised it...

Best Foreign Language Film Oscar 2014 submissions (photo: Ziyi Zhang in ‘The Grandmaster’) (See previous post: Best Foreign Language Film Oscar: ‘The Past,’ ‘Wadjda,’ Andrzej Wajda Among Omissions) In case you missed it, here’s the full list of submissions (in alphabetical order, per country) for the 2014 Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award. The list of contenders was originally announced on October 7, 2013. Of note: Saudi Arabia and Moldova were first-timers; Montenegro was a first-timer as an independent country. Afghanistan, Wajma — An Afghan Love Story, Barmak Akram, director; Albania, Agon, Robert Budina, director; Argentina, The German Doctor, Lucía Puenzo, director; Australia, The Rocket, Kim Mordaunt, director; Austria, The Wall, Julian Pölsler, director; Azerbaijan, Steppe Man, Shamil Aliyev, director; Bangladesh, Television, Mostofa Sarwar Farooki, director; Belgium, The Broken Circle Breakdown, Felix van Groeningen, director; Bosnia and Herzegovina, An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker, Danis Tanovic, director; Brazil, Neighboring Sounds, Kleber Mendonça Filho,...

Best Foreign Language Film Oscar 2014: ‘The Past,’ Berlin winner ‘Child’s Pose,’ Andrzej Wajda among notable omissions (photo: Asghar Farhadi’s ‘The Past,’ with Bérénice Bejo) (See previous post: "Best Foreign Language Film Oscar 2014 semi-finalists: Liv Ullmann, Mads Mikkelsen, Ziyi Zhang star vehicles.") The previous post focused on the nine semi-finalists for the 2014 Oscar in the Best Foreign Language Film category. This post focuses on the surprising omissions from that list. ‘The Past’ The most glaring omission from the Academy’s list of Best Foreign Language Film semi-finalists is Asghar Farhadi’s Sony Pictures Classics-distributed (in the U.S.) The Past / Le Passé, starring Tahar Rahim and 2013 Cannes Film Festival Best Actress winner Bérénice Bejo. Iran’s official Oscar 2014 entry, The Past was considered a shoo-in following overwhelmingly positive notices — e.g., 93% approval rating and 8.6/10 average among Rotten Tomatoes‘ top critics — the fact that both Rahim (A Prophet...

‘Closely Watched Trains’: Oscar-winning movie classic gets special Academy screening (photo: Václav Neckár in ‘Closely Watched Trains’) Jirí Menzel’s first solo feature film, the World War II-set drama Closely Watched Trains / Ostre sledované vlaky (1966) was the 1967 Oscar winner in the Best Foreign Language Film category. Those living in the Los Angeles area will have the chance to watch a new print of Menzel’s classic on the big screen at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, September 23, 2013, at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. To be hosted by Oscar-nominated writer-director Philip Kaufman, the Closely Watched Trains screening will feature a rare onstage discussion with Jirí Menzel himself. A mix of light comedy and somber drama, Closely Watched Trains tells the story of Milos (Václav Neckár), a young railway worker whose routine life in a small Czech town is upended following the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia.

Guests will linclude Helen Mirren, Taylor Hackford, Oliver Stone, Tom Hooper.

The 16th Shanghai International Film Festival (Siff) is set to open tomorrow (June 15) with the Asian premiere of Monsters University. The Pixar 3D comedy prequel marks the first time an animation is opening the mainland China fest.

Siff will host stars such as Oscar-winning British actress Helen Mirren and her husband, Directors Guild of America president Taylor Hackford. Hitchcock (starring Mirren) and Parker (directed by Hackford) will screen during the fest.

Us director Oliver Stone is set to receive an award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement and participate in the SIFForum exchange with Chinese directors. Stone was on the first Siff Golden Goblet Award jury in 1993.

This year, The King’s Speech director Tom Hooper will head the Golden Goblet jury which includes Chinese actress Nan Yu, Czech director Jirí Menzel and Chinese director Ning Hao. Of the 14 finalists, the winners will be announced at the closing...

The San Francisco Film Societyannounced today that Kenneth Branagh will be the recipient of the Founder’s Directing Award at the 55th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 19 – May 3). The Fda will be presented to Branagh at Film Society Awards Night, Thursday, April 26 at the historic Warfield Theatre.

The Film Society and its highly regarded Youth Education program will be the beneficiary of the fundraiser honoring Branagh. The soon-to-be-announced recipients of the Peter J. Owens Award for excellence in acting and the Kanbar Award for excellence in screenwriting will also be honored at the star-studded event. Susie and Pat McBaine and Katie and Todd Traina are chairs of this year’s Film Society Awards Night gala, and Melanie and Larry Blum are the honorary chairs.

“We are thrilled to honor Kenneth Branagh for his remarkable directorial achievements and multifaceted career at this year’s Festival,” said Melanie Blum, the San...

The Twitch-curated Attack The Bloc series of Cold War era science fiction films from the Eastern Bloc continues Friday with a 9:30 pm screening of Czech oddity Ferat Vampire at the Tiff Bell Lightbox.Ambulance medic Dr. Marek (Jirí Menzel, director of the classic Closely Watched Trains) is shocked and dismayed when his beloved nurse and driver Mima (Dagmar Veskrnová) is lured away to become a rally-car driver for car manufacturer Ferat. He's even more shocked (and rightly!) when a fellow doctor tells him that Ferat's much-hyped new sports car is fuelled by the blood of its driver, and becomes determined to free Mima from the clutches of the evil corporation. Brilliant and prolific Slovak director Juraj Herz -- whose darkly funny and supremely creepy...

"Josef Škvorecký, the Czech-Canadian novelist whose stories of life under totalitarianism drew on his own experiences of both Nazism and Communism, died on Tuesday," reports Joseph Brean for Postmedia News. "He was 87. His novel The Engineer of Human Souls, a humorous account of the absurdity of totalitarianism, won the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction in 1984, and he was awarded the prestigious Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1980."

From Reuters: "Škvorecký and his author wife Zdena Salivarova set up the Sixty-Eight Publishers in Toronto after leaving Czechoslovakia in the wake of the 1968 Soviet invasion that crushed hopes of the 'Prague Spring' reforms. He published 227 titles in total. Škvorecký's death comes after fellow leading lights of the Czech artistic anti-communist generation also died in the past year. They include [Václav] Havel, who died in December, as well as authors Ivan Martin Jirous, Arnost Lustig and Jiří Gruša."

"Škvorecký left no shortage of legacies to remember him by,...

Errol Morris, London

The esteem in which this documentarian is held can be judged by the people interviewing him on stage: BBC Storyville producer Nick Fraser, Adam Curtis, Franny Armstrong and the Guardian's Xan Brooks. Each Q&A is preceded by a screening of Morris's latest, Tabloid, which marks a return to his eccentric terrain after recent films on Abu Ghraib (Standard Operating Procedure) and the Vietnam war (The Fog Of War). Tabloid revisits the very British scandal of Joyce McKinney, a Wyoming beauty queen who allegedly kidnapped and sexually enslaved her beau – or did she rescue him from the Mormons? Morris gives us the story from all sides.

Brixton Ritzy, SW2, Sat; Bafta, W1, Sun; Gate Notting Hill, W11; Screen On The Green, N1, Tue

French Film Festival, On tour

There's a tinge of nostalgia to the festival's big draws this year. Special guest Daniel Auteuil harks back to...

Director Will Receive Honor at Film Society Awards Night at Bimbo’s 365 Club and Onstage Tribute at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas

San Francisco, CA — The San Francisco Film Society has announced that Oliver Stone will be the recipient of the Founder’s Directing Award at the 54th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 21 – May 5). The Fda will be presented to Stone at Film Society Awards Night, Thursday, April 28 at Bimbo’s 365 Club.

The Film Society’s highly regarded Youth Education program will be the beneficiary of the glamorous fundraiser honoring Stone. The soon-to-be-announced recipient of the Peter J. Owens Award for excellence in acting and Frank Pierson, recipient of the Kanbar Award for excellence in screenwriting will also be honored at the star-studded event. Melanie and Lawrence Blum are chairs of this year’s Film Society Awards Night, and Carla Emil and Rich Silverstein are the honorary chairs.

“We are thrilled...

František Vlácil, Edinburgh, Glasgow & London

While the likes of Milos Forman and Jirí Menzel benefited from attention focused on Czech cinema in the late-60s and early-70s, František Vlácil wasn't so lucky. He's been mentioned in the same breath as Welles, Tarkovsky and even Kurosawa; and on home turf, his 1967 historical drama Marketa Lazarová is considered a masterpiece. Yet few of Vlácil's films have ever been shown in the UK. Vlácil, who died in 1999, kept working up to the late-80s, and this selection gives a good indication of his range, incorporating Marketa Lazarová alongside lesser-known works such as The Little Shepherd Boy From The Valley and Shadows Of A Hot Summer.

BFI Southbank, SE1, to 30 Sep; Filmhouse, Edinburgh, to 3 Oct; Glasgow Film Theatre, Tue to 28 Sep

Ray Harryhausen, London

In the year of his 90th birthday, Ray Harryhausen can't say he feels too overlooked these days, especially after...

One of last year's the most under-distributed and underseen major European imports, Jirí Menzel's "I Served the King of England" (2006) is lovely, silly, damnable antique, willfully pre-feminist and hopelessly out of fashion. The film, after all, dares to etch out Czech life under the Nazi occupation as preposterous farce, and it hardly halts there in favoring live-it-up hedonism over the grim realities of history. Menzel and his famous co-writer Bohumil Hrabal (who was enough of an institution to warrant a detour for a visiting President Clinton in 1994, and the two hit the local public house for a beer) had been through the Germans, Communist rule and the Soviet invasion, and it's difficult to argue that they haven't earned their esprit -- their two best films, "Closely Watched Trains" (1966) and "Larks on a String" (1990), similarly, and with exhilarating perverseness, portray oppression as absurd comedy, insisting that totalitarianism in all its forms is no match,...

Movie Jungle is pleased to provide you with a chance to win a copy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's "I Served the King of England" on DVD! The film is a winner of the Fipresci Prize at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival as well as a nominee of the Golden Berlin Bear.   The romantic comedy war film stars Ivan Barnev, Oldrich Kaiser, Julia Jentsch, Martin Huba, Marián Labuda and Milan Lasica.   Jirí Menzel, helmer of "Larks on a String" and "The Beggar's Opera," directs the film as well as adapting from the novel by Bohumil Hrabal.   What's it about?    Dreaming of becoming a millionaire, a short but ambitious Czech works his way into a posh pre-war luxury spa, where his marriage to a Hitler-loving fräulein provides him with a golden opportunity to make his fondest wish come true.   Enter now!      ...

Movie Jungle is pleased to provide you with a chance to win a copy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's "I Served the King of England" on DVD! The film is a winner of the Fipresci Prize at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival as well as a nominee of the Golden Berlin Bear. The romantic comedy war film stars Ivan Barnev, Oldrich Kaiser, Julia Jentsch, Martin Huba, Marián Labuda and Milan Lasica. Jirí Menzel, helmer of "Larks on a String" and "The Beggar's Opera," directs the film as well as adapting from the novel by Bohumil Hrabal...

Movie Jungle is pleased to provide you with a chance to win a copy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's "I Served the King of England" on DVD! The film is a winner of the Fipresci Prize at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival as well as a nominee of the Golden Berlin Bear. The romantic comedy war film stars Ivan Barnev, Oldrich Kaiser, Julia Jentsch, Martin Huba, Marián Labuda and Milan Lasica. Jirí Menzel, helmer of "Larks on a String" and "The Beggar's Opera," directs the film as well as adapting from the novel by Bohumil Hrabal...

By Neil Pedley

This week finds Shakespeare meeting Sexy Jesus, a crash course in Czech history alongside a totalitarian demolition derby, apocalyptic sea monsters and Fred Durst trying to get in touch with his fuzzy side.

"Cthulhu"

Director Dan Gildark certainly isn't lacking for confidence. Whereas most first-time filmmakers would turn to the well-worn territory of twentysomethings and their quirky quarterlife crises for subject matter, Gildark has opted to tackle H.P Lovecraft's sprawling, heady, quasi-religious mythos from the short story "Shadow over Innsmouth" instead. Jason Cottle stars as Russ, a history professor who returns home to Oregon to execute his late mother's will and discovers his father is the leader of the coastal town's apocalyptic cult that centers on the fabled Cthulhu, an extraterrestrial deity that exists in a state of torpor at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. When Russ learns a mass sacrifice may be in the offing,...

• I don't see them as comeback kids, but rather, old school folk churning out the occasional gem and still knowing their ways about the process. Filmmaking is not like learning how to ride a bike. Just ask Wim Wenders. With a lot less frequency than a Woody Allen or a Jacques Rivette, the director behind 1966's Closely Watched Trains, was recently cited for his skill with a Best Foreign film nomination. Sony Pictures Classics has got Jirí Menzel's I Served the King of England on tap for a mid August release. We have the large poster below. Based on a picaresque novel by Czech novelist Bohumil Hrabal, this is the burlesque rise and fall of an apprentice waiter in Prague during the first half of the last century. Jan Dítě (Ivan Barnev) is short in height, but high in ambition. To put it bluntly, the young provincial waiter wants to become a millionaire.

...

• It's been a great year for veteran Czech director Jirí Menzel - a Fipresci Prize at  the Berlin film festival, accolades from his peers, rewarded with a slew of Czech Lion (year end awards) and finally Czech Republic's nomination for the Foreign Oscar category. Just before the long weekend, Sony Pictures Classics announced that they have picked up North American rights to I Served the King of England.Its been more than 40 years since Closely Watched Trains, and the director still keeps churning them out. This picture has proved to be a very popular foreign title - sold to 47 countries, the screenplay focuses on two parallel stories. The first follows the youthful exploits and gradual maturing of an ambitious little man before the War and during the German occupation when, in love and guided by stupidity rather than opportunism, he finds himself on the side of the occupying power.

...

• With Eran Kolirin's The Band's Visit out of the foreign Oscar picture, Ioncinema.com predicts a four-way race between audience faves Persepolis,  The Counterfeiters, 4 months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and Caramel. Spain's The Orphanage has the best chance at completing the 5 pack. That said everything else is just a formality. The final five picks will be announced on Jan. 22. The Oscar ceremony takes place Feb. 24.        2008 Foreign Oscar Long ListArgentina: Xxy (Lucia Puenzo)Australia: The Home Song Stories (Tony Ayres) Austria: The Counterfeiters (Stefan Ruzowitzky)Azerbaijan: Caucasia (Farid Gumbatov)Bangladesh: On The Wings Of Dreams (Golam Rabbany Biblob)Belgium: Ben X  (Nic Balthazar) Bosnia and Herzegovina: It's Hard To Be Nice (Srdjan Vuletic)Brazil: The Year My Parents Went on Vacation (Cao Hamburger)Bulgaria: Warden of the Dead (Ilian Simeonov)Canada: The Days of Darkness (Denys Arcand)Chile: Padre nuestro (Our Father) - (Rodrigo Sepulveda)China: The Knot (Yun shui

...

The animated film "Persepolis", from France, Denys Arcand's "Days of Darkness" from Canada, Johnnie To's "Exiled" from Hong Kong and Cristian Mungiu's Palm d'Or winner "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" are among the 63 films that have qualified for Oscar consideration in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences' foreign language film category.

The record number of 63 entries include first-time submissions from Azerbaijan (Farid Gumbatov's "Caucasia") and Ireland (Tom Collins' "Kings").

Nominations for the 80th Academy Awards will be announced Jan. 22, and the Oscars will be handed out Feb. 24.

The complete list follows:

Argentina, "XXY", Lucia Puenzo, director; Australia, "The Home Song Stories", Tony Ayres; Austria, "The Counterfeiters", Stefan Ruzowitzky; Azerbaijan, "Caucasia", Farid Gumbatov; Bangladesh, "On the Wings of Dreams", Golam Rabbany, Biplob; Belgium, "Ben X", Nic Balthazar; Bosnia and Herzegovina, "It's Hard to Be Nice", Srdan Vuletic; Brazil, "The Year My Parents Went on Vacation," Cao Hamburger; and Bulgaria, "Warden of the Dead", Ilian Simeonov.

Canada, "Days of Darkness", Denys Arcand; Chile, "Padre Nuestro", Rodrigo Sepulveda; China, "The Knot", Yin Li; Colombia, "Satanas", Andi Baiz; Croatia, "Armin", Ognjen Svilicic; Cuba, "The Silly Age", Pavel Giroud; Czech Republic, "I Served the King of England", Jiri Menzel, director; Denmark, "The Art of Crying", Peter Schonau Fog; Egypt, "In the Heliopolis Flat", Mohamed Khan; and Estonia, "The Class", Ilmar Raag.

COLOGNE, Germany -- Cristian Mungiu's Palme d'Or-winning abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Paul Verhoeven's WWII thriller Black Book and Sam Garbarski's dark comedy Irina Palm are among the titles the European Film Academy has selected in its initial list of nominees for this year's European Film Prize.

The 1,800 members of the EFA will use the list of 42 films to select the official nominees in seven main categories. The nominations will be announced Nov. 3 at the Sevilla Film Festival.

The 2007 EFA long list is a typical catch-all of the critically acclaimed and/or financially successful European productions of the past year.

Opulent big-budget productions including Olivier Dahan's Edith Piaf biography La Vie en Rose and Tom Tykwer's literary adaptation Perfume: The Story of a Murderer butt up against art house fare exemplified by Austrian director Ulrich Seidl's Import/Export or The Banishment from Russian director Andrei Zvyagintsev.

Unlike in previous years, there is no consensus frontrunner, despite the presence of Oscar winners The Queen and The Last King of Scotland in the nominations list.

And in another departure, no one European country dominates the nominations. No nation, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the U.K. -- which produce the bulk of films in Europe -- has more than three films in the nominations list.

Another interesting development is the rise of Central and Eastern Europe. Some of the most talked-about films come from the EU's newest members, including Mungiu's 4 Months, Serbian thriller The Trap by director Srdan Golubovic and Jiri Menzel's Czech-language drama I Served the King of England.

The winners of the 20th annual European Film Awards will be announced Dec. 1 in Berlin.