The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) celebrates the eightieth anniversary of its founding and its 60th edition this 12 months. Along with Hollywood celebrities, it has lengthy celebrated and honored huge Czech stars.
This 12 months, KVIFF will bestow its President’s Award on a well-known Slovak actress who turned an envoy and revered voice in political life.
“By presenting an award to Magda Vášáryová, the festival aims not just to express its respect for the performances of one of the greatest Slovak actresses of all time, but also to remember the unique artistic connection between the Czech and Slovak filmmakers who shaped our two countries’ shared cinematic history,” organizers stated. Slovakia and Czechia turned separate impartial nations once more firstly of 1993, following the peaceable dissolution of Czechoslovakia.
Vášáryová “has always been outstanding, including in terms of her intelligence in selecting her parts and her ability to use her depth, both intellectual and emotional, in her characters,” KVIFF creative director Karel Och tells THR. “With her, it is a bit like with Eric Cantona, who decided, when he was 30, that it was enough and so he stopped playing soccer to do other things [, including acting]. Every now and then, you have this fantastic Renaissance personality, such as Mrs. Vášáryová, who became a very respected politician.”
Lauding her intelligence, potential to precise advanced connections, “beautiful sense of humor and the Central European sense for irony, it is a great pleasure to [honor] her,” Och concludes. “I can’t wait for her to join the festival and accept the award. In this double anniversary year, when we look a lot into the past and at the heritage of the festival, we were striving to honor a special person, who is connecting the world of cinema with other worlds beyond culture.”
The 77-year-old Vášáryová could also be well-known in Czechia and Slovakia, however in case you want a primer, THR has compiled just a few issues to learn about her proper right here.
Breakthrough Movie
Vášáryov had her breakthrough function in František Vláčil’s historic drama Marketa Lazarová in 1967. “In 1998, domestic film critics and journalists voted this cinematic masterpiece as the most important work of our hundred-year cinematic history,” KVIFF highlighted in unveiling its plans to honor her. “The film was digitally restored in 2011, and the restored version’s world premiere was held at the 46th KVIFF.”
The actress, not even 20 again then, performs the titular character within the film.
What’s the Czechoslovak New Wave interval epic, an adaptation of a 1931 novel by Vladislav Vančura, about? Set within the thirteenth century amid a shift from Paganism to Christianity in Central Europe, the movie tells the story of the virgin daughter of a feudal lord who will get kidnapped by marauders earlier than she is set to hitch a convent.
She Didn’t At all times Have Her Eye on the Arts
Vášáryová turned a well-known actress, however she initially didn’t give attention to the humanities. As a substitute, she attended a college with a give attention to math and physics. However the international success of Marketa Lazarová introduced additional appearing provides. As KVIFF highlighted: “Vášáryová has said that she had originally not dreamt of becoming an actress.”
Fortunately for followers, issues ended up enjoying out in another way, and she or he acted in additional movies and began to carry out on the Divadlo Na korze theater in Bratislava, which was well-known for its absurdist drama, political satire, and avant-garde productions.
‘Birds, Orphans and Fools,’ courtesy of KVIFF
She Has Starred in a Jules Verne Movie
Really, to be extra exact, she portrayed the feminine lead in Karel Zeman’s 1970 adaptation of Jules Verne’s novel Off on a Comet, entitled On the Comet.
She performs Angelika, who saves Captain Hector Servadac, a cartographer for the French military in a French colony in Northern Africa, when he falls into the ocean whereas mapping the world. The younger lady is on the run from Spanish captors.
A Star-Turned-Ambassador
After the Velvet Revolution led to the autumn of communism, Vášáryová accepted a suggestion from President Václav Havel to be Czechoslovakia’s ambassador to Austria (1990–1993). Later, 2000 to 2005, she served as Slovakia’s ambassador to Poland. “She has since continued to be engaged in politics and public life,” highlighted KVIFF.
And it talked about: “In February 2026, she earned a Ph.D. in historical sociology from Charles University’s Faculty of Humanities [in Prague]. She has authored several books, including last year’s collection of interviews Než zmizím (Before I Disappear), in which she speaks openly about current issues.”
Out of the Previous, and Into the Future
Throughout this 12 months’s sixtieth version of KVIFF, audiences can watch Vášáryová star in a movie featured within the Out of the Previous classics program, specifically Juraj Jakubisko’s 1969 film Birds, Orphans and Fools, “which will be personally introduced by the legendary actress Magda Vášáryová,” because the fest highlights. “This cult ‘banned’ parable only had its true premiere more than 20 years after it was filmed, at the 1990 KVIFF.”
Why banned, you ask? Right here’s a synopsis: “Three people who are all orphaned by political violence, live In an unspecified time and place and face a tough, violent world. To survive, they adopt a childlike approach to life, living in joyful denial.”
