17-05-2008

US films premiering at the Karlovy Vary film festival

By FNE Staff

    40 World, International, and European premieres, and over 200 Czech premieres will be screened at the 43rd Karlovy Vary IFF 2008.

    They include The Guitar, directed by Amy Redford (USA 2007), an international premiere which will screen in the official competition section.

    Amy Redford's directorial debut, The Guitar is a story of one woman's spiritual and creative transformation. One fateful morning, and in rapid succession, thirty something Melody Wilder is diagnosed with terminal cancer, fired from her job and abandoned by her boyfriend. With nothing left to lose, given less than two months to live, she spends her entire savings to pursue her dreams, which include learning to play the electric guitar she's craved since childhood.

    Written by Amos Poe and based on a real story, Amy Redford's charming indie drama, which in its KVIFF's international premiere will compete for this year's Grand Prix - Crystal Globe, features an exceptional performance of Saffron Burrows.

    Nick Nolte: No Exit, directed by Tom Thurman (USA 2008), will have its world premiere as an official selection in the Out of Competition section. Golden Globe winner and two time Academy Award nominee Nick Nolte will be coming to Karlovy Vary to introduce the docu-portrait.

    "Nick Nolte: No Exit has an inspired format - instead of hiring a stern, scathing interviewer to get to the bottom of Nick Nolte, Tom Thurman asked Nolte to be the questioner, as well as the weary man trying to answer the endless riddles that can get in the way of being Nick. So it's Q&A with a vengeance, Old Nick and Young Nick. All of a sudden, the stale conventions of celebrity interview fall away and we realize that in any worthwhile actor's mind there is always a running discourse like this - savage, scornful, funny, hopeful, and touching."-- David Thomson.

    The Karlovy Vary IFF is proud to present the world premiere of the extraordinary docu-portrait NICK NOLTE: NO EXIT by Tom Thurman, the author of Warren Oates: Across the Border or Sam Peckinpah's West. The film features testimonies by Nolte's friends and collaborators Ben Stiller, Paul Mazursky, Jacqueline Bisset, Rosanna Arquette, Mike Medavoy and Alan Rudolph.