Film celebrities glitter in Czech spa town

Jul 1, 2006, 11:23 GMT

Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic - A quiet spa town glittered with more than Hollywood glory as filmmakers from around the world mingled Saturday at the Czech Republic's largest film festival.

Cuban-born American actor-director Andy Garcia, Korean director Kim Ki-duk and American producer Robert Shaye were among the international figures attending the week-long Karlovy Vary Film Festival in the western Czech Republic.

The festival's 230-plus fiction and documentary films include 14 world premieres and 39 movies being shown for the first time in Europe or at an international venue.

The festival opened with the world premier of Kim's 'Time,' a critical exposure of fast-paced life, and the Friday night presentation to Garcia of the festival's highest honour, the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema.

In a festival interview, Garcia said his latest project 'The Lost City' about pre-Castro Cuba in the 1950s was 'a very personal project.'

'The protagonist of the movie is really the music, and I've been involved in music all my life,' he said. 'The reason why I made the movie was for the music.'

The anti-Castro theme played well among the festival's mainly Czech audience, whose cultural plate was spare during their own communist era.

This is the festival's 41st year, although it officially began in 1946.

From the late 1940s, the former communist regime turned Karlovy Vary into a propaganda machine. It wasn't until 1994, five years after democracy returned with the 1989 Velvet Revolution, that the festival revived as a feast of free cinematography.

Festival organizers expect more than 1,000 visitors to enjoy a week of films from Europe, the Americas and Asia.

Celebrities casually strolling among the crowds in the relaxed spa atmosphere included British stars Hugh Dancy and Jacqueline Bisset, American actor Alan Alda and Czech supermodel Hana Soukupova.

American actor-director Danny Huston, son of the late director John Huston, is a special guest for a tribute to his father, who would have turned 100 this year.

Later in the festival, Shaye was to receive a Crystal Globe for a lifetime of contributions including the masterpiece Lord of the Rings.