The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF, 20-28 August) has just unveiled the selection for its non-competitive sections, as a follow-up to the previous line-up announcement (see the news). The Imagina section, celebrating movies with distinctive and radical visions of film language, will screen Jóhann Jóhannsson’s experimental audiovisual sci-fi poem Last and First Men [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] alongside the Berlinale discovery Taste [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Lê Bảo.

The Horizons section, which rounds up films from the recent season, is exceptionally jam-packed this year and includes titles from last year as well. The batch coming fresh from Cannes encompasses the Grand Prix winner, Compartment No. 6 [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Juho Kuosmanen
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intervista: Nadav Lapid
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intervista: Sergei Loznitsa
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intervista: Elie Grappe
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intervista: Joachim Trier
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intervista: João Nunes Monteiro
intervista: Maureen Fazendeiro e Migue…
scheda film]. Moreover, the selection of Horizons titles includes Christos Nikou’s absurdist dramedy Apples [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Christos Nikou
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intervista: Radu Jude
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intervista: Dalibor Matanić
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intervista: Jonas Poher Rasmussen
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intervista: Jasmila Žbanić
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scheda film]. Furthermore, a crop of genre films will bow as Midnight Screenings, including the zany Mother Schmuckers [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Harpo e Lenny Guit
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The festival has also revealed the name of the first guest. Karlovy Vary will honour US actor-director-writer Ethan Hawke with the Festival President's Award. “We are thrilled to welcome an artist we’ve been admiring for a long time to Karlovy Vary. In 2018, KVIFF paid tribute to the Austin Film Society [see the news], and it is exciting to extend our appreciation of this renowned organisation’s work by honouring an actor and director who is so closely connected to the Texan independent film scene,” said artistic director Karel Och and executive director Kryštof Mucha. Hawke will introduce Paul Schrader’s thriller First Reformed, in which he plays a parish pastor plunged into a crisis of faith.

The full line-up of the 55^th KVIFF is available here.