Sir Michael Caine, Johnny Depp coming to Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

Film stars Sir Michael Caine and Johnny Depp will be attending the 55th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, which runs Aug. 20–28 in West Bohemia. They will join the previously announced Ethan Hawke as the main festival guests. Czech director Jan Svěrák will get the KVIFF President’s Award.

Two-time Oscar winner Sir Michael Caine will be presented with a Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema at the festival’s opening ceremony. During the festival, he will personally present director Lina Roessler’s feature film debut Best Sellers (2021), in which he portrays a cranky old author who sets out on a final book tour.

During his six-decade career, Caine has played over 100 roles ranging from dramas to comedies. He received his first Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters. In 2000, he received his second Oscar for his performance in the film adaption of the bestselling book The Cider House Rules, directed by Lasse Hallström. He was nominated on four other occasions.

He has earned three Golden Globes – for Educating Rita, Jack the Ripper, and Little Voice – and eight Golden Globe nominations. He has also won BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild Awards, among many others. In 1992, Caine was inducted into the Order of the British Empire, and in 2000 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

Caine was in the Czech Republic in 2018 to film scenes for the action drama Medieval, where he plays a lord during the Hussite Wars. The release has been delayed to 2022 due to the pandemic.

The festival will honor American actor, producer, and musician Johnny Depp with screenings of his most recent cinematic producer credits, Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan and Minamata.

“We’re incredibly honored to welcome to the festival an icon of the contemporary cinema,” KVIFF executive director Krystof Mucha and the festival artistic director Karel Och said. “We’ve admired Mr. Depp for such a long time and are thrilled to bestow this honor on him.”

The documentary Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan, directed by Julien Temple, uses interviews, archival footage, and animation by Ralph Steadman to delve into the life of the Irish singer best known as the leader of the Pogues in the 1980s. Depp, in addition to producing the film, appears is interview clips as friend of the singer.

In the fact-based drama Minamata, Depp appears as photographer W. Eugene Smith, who documented the effects of mercury poisoning on the residents of a city in Japan in 1971. The famous photographer had become a recluse, but was convinced to help expose the results of corporate greed. His efforts did not go unopposed. The film, directed by Andrew Levitas, premiered at the Berlinale in 2020.

Deep made his acting debut in 1984 in the horror film Nightmare on Elm Street, and then came to fame on TV in the series 21 Jump Street. He then became known for his frequent collaborations with director Tim Burton as well as art house hits such as What's Eating Gilbert Grape and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

The comedy Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl brought him his first Academy Award nomination in 2004, followed by another two for Finding Neverland and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. For the latter film, the won the Screen Actors Guild Award and a Golden Globe.

Depp was in Prague in 2018 playing guitar with his band the Hollywood Vampires, opening for open for Ozzy Osbourne at the Prague Rocks festival. He was also in the Czech Republic for the filming of the 2001 horror film From Hell.

Jan Svěrák will receive the KVIFF President’s Award, which is for domestic filmmakers, at the festival closing. He will also be at a special Aug. 26 screening of his film The Ride, which won the 1995 Crystal Globe for Best Film at the 30th Karlovy Vary IFF. Since his feature film debut The Elementary School (1991), he has collaborated with his father, the actor and screenwriter Zdeněk Svěrák. He is currently completing his film Bethlehem Light, for which he wrote a screenplay based on his father’s short stories.