The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has unveiled the official selection and jury members for its upcoming 60th edition, running from July 3 to 11.
Scroll down for the full list of competition titles at this year’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival. Related Stories News Maggie Gyllenhaal & Jesse Eisenberg To Be Honored At Karlovy Vary Festivals Karlovy Vary Expands Industry Days Strand With New Initiatives Including Book-To-Screen Program
The New Yorker film critic Justin Chang will serve on the jury of this year’s Crystal Globe Competition alongside filmmaker Amanda Nell Eu, Czech sound designer, producer, and composer Pavel Rejholec, producer Nadia Turincev, and filmmaker Eskil Vogt. Watch on Deadline
3 nedelje posle / 3 Weeks AfterDirector: Miroslav TerzićSerbia, Bulgaria, 2026, 94 min, World premiere
Cherni pari za beli noshti / Black Money for White NightsDirector: Kristina Grozeva, Petar ValchanovBulgaria, Greece, 2025, 94 min, World premiere
After years of saving money from the small bribes they collect, sixty-year-old Marina and her husband Gosha from Bulgaria are preparing for their dream trip to St. Petersburg to witness the White Nights. But when Russia invades Ukraine and the travel agency vanishes with all their savings, the couple’s dream collapses along with their illusion of control over their moral principles and the relationship they have with each other. Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov, recipients of the 2019 Crystal Globe, return to Karlovy Vary with a tragicomic portrait of a generation forced to reassess its values as they question everything that is considered black and white in post-Soviet society.
Detrás de la lluvia / Behind the RainDirector: Valeria SarmientoChile, 2026, 97 min, World premiere
Gæsten / The GuestDirector: Mads MengelDenmark, 2026, 99 min, World premiere
A Happy FamilyDirector: Jan-Eric MackSwitzerland, 2026, 120 min, World premiere
HijamatDirector: Nader SaeivarGermany, 2026, 103 min, World premiere
The Lion at My BackDirector: Tonia MishialiCyprus, Luxembourg, Greece, 2026, 106 min, World premiere
Mariama, an asylum-seeker from Senegal, has just turned eighteen. Stella, at first glance a withdrawn woman in her forties, has recently decided to break free from the clutches of addiction and to give her life a fresh start. In their attempt at finding their place in a world where nothing comes for free, the two women meet and form an unexpectedly strong bond. Following her 2018 debut Pause, Cyprian producer and director Tonia Mishiali returns to Karlovy Vary with a vivid, heartwarming, and hopeful story about how family bonds and motherly love can be found in the most unlikely places.
PipesDirector: Karim KassemLebanon, 2025, 112 min, World premiere
Although Hassan has retired from his job at the water authority, his neighbors are used to him always helping them out. This time, the situation is serious: The entire town is without water, and tensions are rising among the population with every passing day. Hassan would like to help them all, but he also needs time to mourn a friend who recently died under unclear circumstances. Lebanese director Karim Kassem skillfully works with various cinematic genres to create an elegant double portrait of an aging man and the town of which he has been a part all his life. He does so with a sense of nostalgia, subtle humor, and an almost meditative melancholy, mixed with a touch of detective work.
Prameň / Only Beautiful Things to Look AtDirector: Ivan OstrochovskýSlovak Republic, Czech Republic, Hungary, 2026, 90 min, World premiere
Thit-thee Khu / Fruit GatheringDirector: Aung PhyoeMyanmar, France, Czech Republic, 2026, 97 min, World premiere
33 krokov / 33 StepsDirector: Anna Domček, Šimon DomčekSlovak Republic, Czech Republic, 2026, 71 min, World premiere
Camionero / Truck DriverDirector: Francisco MariseSpain, Argentina, 2026, 84 min, World premiere
Contra la Naturaleza / Against NatureDirector: Axel BerthaMexico, 2026, 86 min, World premiere
Enas olokliros anthropos schedon / A Whole Person AlmostDirector: Efthimis Kosemund-SanidisGreece, Bulgaria, Germany, Cyprus, Romania, 2025, 111 min, World premiere
Homo Sive NaturaDirector: Giovanni C. LorussoItaly, 2026, 115 min, World premiere
The Ink-Stained Hand and the Missing ThumbDirector: Yashasvi JuyalIndia, 2026, 120 min, World premiere
If the world had an edge, it might look something like the remote corner of northern India where Santosh and Rajji live, collecting highway tolls in dilapidated booths. Work and endless waiting are blurred together. Bound by the power of love, but also by the need to constantly move around in search of work, they dream of the happiness that awaits them in a new place… until one day, a sudden tragedy turns their lives upside down. As melancholic as it is tender, The Ink-Stained Hand and the Missing Thumb is the story of everyone who has suffered an unexpected loss. It is a heartfelt romance bordering on magical realism, a fleeting memory of a loved one who has vanished into the past, never to return.
Mein Freund der Pornostar / My Friend the Porn StarDirector: Rosa FriedrichAustria, 2026, 94 min, World premiere
Paris ParisDirector: Isabelle TollenaereBelgium, 2026, 78 min, World premiere
Rain CatcherDirector: Michele FiascarisItaly, United Kingdom, 2026, 109 min, World premiere
Shokyakuro / IncineratorDirector: Shuntaro UchidaJapan, 2026, 97 min, World premiere
Sitni lopovi / Petty ThievesDirector: Mate UgrinCroatia, Germany, France, 2026, 106 min, World premiere
Kdyby se holubi proměnili ve zlato / If Pigeons Turned to GoldDirector: Pepa LubojackiCzech Republic, Slovak Republic, 2026, 110 min
Khaneh doost injast / The Friend’s House is HereDirector: Maryam Ataei, Hossein KeshavarzIran, USA, 2025, 96 min, International premiere
Learning To Breathe UnderwaterDirector: Rebekah FortuneUnited Kingdom, Netherlands, Ireland, 2026, 95 min, World premiere
Město otců / City of Fathers Director: Zdeněk TycCzech Republic, Slovak Republic, Poland, 2026, 100 min, World premiere
Mistryně / Everything As It Should BeDirector: Bohdan KarásekCzech Republic, 2026, 101 min, World premiere
MortenDirector: Ivan PavljutskovEstonia, Lithuania, 2026, 101 min, World premiere
Robert Richardson: The White DevilDirector: Jana HojdováCzech Republic, USA, 2026, 105 min, World premiere
The Story of Documentary Film – 1980sDirector: Mark CousinsUnited Kingdom, 2026, 120 min, World premiere
To Die to LiveDirector: Yuliia HontarukUkraine, Latvia, Slovak Republic, 2026, 116 min, World premiere
Vyvolený / Gregorius, the Chosen OneDirector: Tomasz MielnikCzech Republic, Poland, Romania, 2026, 90 min, World premiere
Justin Chang is a film critic at The New Yorker and NPR’s “Fresh Air”. He won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for criticism for his writing at the Los Angeles Times, where he spent eight years as a critic. Previously, he was the chief film critic at Variety. Chang serves as chair of the National Society of Film Critics and secretary of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and is a member of the New York Film Festival selection committee. He teaches at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California.
Amanda Nell Eu is a filmmaker based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Her debut feature film Tiger Stripes was the Grand Prize winner of Semaine de la Critique in the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. The film was also the official Malaysian submission for the Academy Awards in 2023. Amanda graduated from the London Film School with an MA in Filmmaking and is an alumna of Berlinale Talents, Tokyo Talents and Locarno Filmmakers Academy. She has also served as a jury member at various film festivals and mentored film workshops internationally.
Pavel Rejholec is a Czech sound designer, producer, composer, and educator. He graduated from the Department of Sound Design at FAMU, where he has been head of the department since 2011. Throughout his career, he has worked as a sound designer on more than fifty Czech and international feature films. Since 2003, he has served as the managing director of the Soundsquare studio. He has won eight Czech Lion Awards for Best Sound, for instance, for the films Zátopek or The Painted Bird. As a dubbing supervisor, he collaborated with Lucasfilm on Star Wars: Episode II and Star Wars: Episode III. He is a member of the Motion Picture Sound Editors and serves on the board of the Czech Film and Television Academy.
Nadia Turincev was born in Moscow, grew up in Paris and studied cultural anthropology. She started off in the movie industry aged 16, making sandwiches for Marcello Mastroianni. In 2007, she co-founded Rouge International, producing 25+ films (Fix ME, Mimosas, Raw, Oscar-nominated The Insult and Faces Places). In 2019 she left Rouge and created Easy Riders Films (Mariupolis 2, Crossing, Only Rebels Win) with Omar El Kadi. She recently opened her solo company Sento Films to produce “unrealizable” films.
Estrella Araiza is the General Director of the Guadalajara International Film Festival (FICG) and Cineteca UDG, where she has focused on strengthening the presence of Mexican and Latin American cinema across both institutions. Her professional career includes experience as Director of Industry and Market at FICG, as well as work as a sales agent, academic, and film distributor in Mexico. She began her career in international film distribution in 2005, and in 2012 founded her own company, Vendo Cine. Since 2018, she has overseen FICG’s special projects, including the acclaimed exhibition Guillermo del Toro: At Home with My Monsters in Guadalajara.
Dirk Decker is a producer and co-founder of Hamburg-based Tamtam Film. Through Tamtam, he works with emerging talents and supports distinctive auteur cinema across fiction and documentary. His productions have premiered at major international festivals. Recent titles include Rain Fell on the Nothing New (Karlovy Vary 2025), Short Summer (Venice 2025, Lion of the Future) and Trial of Hein (Berlinale 2026, Teddy Jury Award).
Jakub Felcman is a Czech screenwriter, festival organizer, film critic, creative producer, director, and qualified plumber. He studied film at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, and FAMU, published interviews and film analyses (for Cinepur), programmed film festivals, and co-founded two of them (Ostrava Kamera Oko, Marienbad). As a script editor he collaborated on films by Jan Němec, Petr Václav, Radu Jude, and Corneliu Porumboiu. Cinemas have screened several films that he co-wrote or produced (such as A Night Too Young, A Certain Kind of Silence, and The Wolf from Royal Vineyard Street).
Devika Girish is editor at Film Comment magazine and a Talks programmer at the New York Film Festival. Her writing also appears in The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Nation, The New Republic, Sight & Sound, The Criterion Collection, and others, and she has programmed series and festivals for the Criterion Channel, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Film at Lincoln Center, the Mumbai Film Festival, the Berlin Critics’ Week, and more. Devika has been invited to juries at CPH:DOX, the Locarno Film Festival, SEMINCI, and Visions du Réel.
Marija Kavtaradze is a Lithuanian director and screenwriter. Graduating from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre in 2014, she made her feature debut with Summer Survivors in 2018, which premiered at the Toronto IFF, followed by Slow (2023), which earned her a Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival and had its European premiere at KVIFF in 2023. Marija works as a screenwriter on shorts and feature films, including The Visitor (dir. Vytautas Katkus, KVIFF 2025), Runner (dir. Andrius Blaževičius, KVIFF 2021), the animated TV series BFF for kids, and others.
Source: deadline.com