Celebrities feel at ease at Czech film festival

Jul 6, 2005, 12:45 GMT

U.S. actor Sharon Stone arrives at the Thermal Hotel to receive the Crystal Globe award for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema at the 40th International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic, Saturday 02 July 2005. EPA/IVAN BABEJ

Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic - From Robert Redford's critique of America's press to Sharon Stone's jeans at a no-denim gala, movie celebrities are shaking off inhibitions this week at a film festival tucked away in a quiet corner of the western Czech Republic.

Stars feel at ease at the annual Karlovy Vary International Film Festival because, despite its status as the most prestigious event of its kind in eastern Europe, this is a well-guarded venue in a remote spa town.

Karlovy Vary, whose German name is Carlsbad, is traditionally a place for respite and mineral-water health treatments. But high-profile visitors can also enjoy its distance from the pressured glare of European cities. Prague, for example, is 100 kilometres away via two-lane road.

The festival's celebrities are staying in a luxury hotel nestled beside wooded hills, a stream and rows of buildings with beautiful old architecture.

And instead of noisy autograph hunters and TV cameras, famous stars at the film festival are comfortably surrounded by the same Russian bodyguards who come to town every summer to protect elite holidaymakers from Moscow and Kiev.

Light-years away from his native America, Redford this week was clearly relaxed when spoke his mind about Washington politics. He told Czech reporters that U.S. President George Bush deserves the same journalistic scrutiny that led to Richard Nixon's resignation 30 years ago.

"But where is the press?" asked Redford, who played Watergate reporter Bob Woodward in "All the President's Men", a film about Nixon's downfall. "Excuse me for saying this, but the press is more interested in celebrities."

Likewise, Stone didn't fear ruffling feathers when she wore jeans and a casual top to a formal dinner where celebrities mingled with top Czech politicians. A spokesman said the Hollywood diva simply didn't have time between arriving and the gala to change her clothes.

The festival's atmosphere of distance and detachment also may have contributed to Stone's slip-up when she called her host country "Czechoslovakia", forgetting that the country with that name dissolved 12 years ago and was replaced by today's Czech Republic and Slovakia.

"Czechoslovakia has for me great and profound meaning because of your Velvet Revolution," Stone told Czech reporters, who are sensitive to what's now a long-running mistake among non-Czechs. She partially recovered, though, by hailing former President Vaclav Havel and "a country whose artistry and politics go so well together".

Karlovy Vary began hosting the festival in 1946. A few years later it was usurped by the communist regime, which promoted propaganda films for the next 40 years.

The 1989 Velvet Revolution restored Czech democracy, but the festival's revival had to wait until 1994.

In the past decade it's expanded into an east-meets-west showcase for world cinema, rivalling international festivals in Cannes and Berlin but setting itself apart as a special venue for filmmakers from eastern Europe and former Soviet countries.

This year's festival, which ends Saturday, included individual achievement awards and new-film competitions. Featured were screenings of more than 200 films from Russia, Germany, Poland, Canada and even central Asian countries.

Among the biggest stars were Stone, Redford and Norwegian actress Liv Ullman. Each received a Crystal Globe achievement award.

American actress Ali MacGraw was a film judge, and American actors Matt Dillon, Brad Renfro and Michael Pitt came to promote new movies.

And the festival was teeming with famous directors, screenwriters and other artists who mingled with locals on the spa town's cobblestone streets.

Attendance figures indicate that Karlovy Vary's celebrity appeal has been drawing more paying festival-goers, from 800 in 1999 to more than 1,200 last year. But it's the town's charm and "getaway" feeling that the stars really love.

While accepting her festival award, Stone noted that as a Pennsylvania native she grew up in "a very small town in the middle of nowhere." Perhaps in Karlovy Vary, then, she felt at home.

"Its hard to imagine that I would end up here so very far away in such an unbelievably beautiful place with you," Stone said.