KVIFF Industry Days Sets Book-to-Screen Titles, Rolling Stones Film Among Central Stage Projects

'Noah' Courtesy of KVIFF

The expanded and broadened industry program of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) has unveiled the 11 directors for the second edition of its KVIFF Central Stage showcase and eight titles for its inaugural Book-to-Screen program.

The 60th edition of the fest, taking place in the Czech spa town July 3-11, is doubling down on the Central-European co-production focus of its works-in-progress market KVIFF Promises. The 11 upcoming movies selected for KVIFF Central Stage, in partnership with eight national film institutes across the region, are “directed by established filmmakers with extensive festival pedigrees, including Nicolas Steiner, Antonio Lukich, Olga Chajdas or Cristina Groșan,” KVIFF said. “These films in the making, seeking co-production, financing, sales, distribution, and festival premiere opportunities, will be showcased during an interactive talk show” on the Film Industry Main Stage on Monday, July 6. The participating projects will also get access to exclusive post-production advantages through a partnership with studios UPP and Soundsquare and are alsieligible for the €20,000 ($23,185) Eurimages Co-Production Development Award. The literary works selected for the first-ever Book-to-Screen at KVIFF showcase, designed to create a market for film adaptation rights to original IP from Central and Eastern Europe and strengthen cooperation between the film and publishing industries. “The award-winning books, selected by an international jury for their strong cinematic potential,” will be presented to domestic and international producers in a talk show format moderated by Niki Théron of the Frankfurt Book Fair on Tuesday, July 7, KVIFF said. “For this first edition, we were delighted to receive more than 70 submissions from 14 countries,” said Théron. “Selecting just eight was a real challenge, but the final lineup now reflects the region’s diversity of countries, genres and themes, from historical epics and folk horror to children’s stories and bold contemporary voices.” In total, KVIFF Promises 2026 will present 38 projects across five programs to producers, sales companies, distributors, festival programmers, and other professionals seeking quality emerging films or works available for adaptation: They include 11 feature films in the KVIFF Central Stage program, nine treatments in the Works in Development – Feature Launch section, four in the Works in Development – Focus Queer section, six feature film or series projects in KVIFF Talents, and eight original literary IPs in Book-to-Screen at KVIFF. Details about all the showcases can be found on the KVIFF website or the Book of Projects.

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Among the books being pitched for possible adaptations are historical drama Cupid at the Kremlin Wall, Lithuanian hit Aspic Bistro, “set in a surreal, almost Orwellian-controlled kitchen environment,” and Amadoka, which uses the war in the Donbas as its starting point.

“Our long-term ambition with Book-to-Screen at KVIFF is to become a true Central-Eastern European IP market that helps develop dialogue between the film and publishing industries and create a more transparent environment for adaptation rights in the region,” said Hugo Rosák, the head of KVIFF Film Industry Programs.

graphic novel ‘The Zone’

Meanwhile, KVIFF Central Stage is designed to showcase upcoming feature films of established filmmakers in late-stage development, production or post-production. “This format addresses a notable gap in the Central European film landscape, where mid-career filmmakers typically have fewer opportunities for visibility and financing than emerging ones,” said Rosák. With Swiss Films as a new partner this year, Switzerland will be represented by the project Flying Mountain, written and directed by Nicolas Steiner, whose previous films, such as Above and Below, screened at Berlin, Rotterdam and KVIFF. Ukraine will present two co-productions: Screaming Girl by director Antonio Lukich, whose Luxembourg, Luxembourg premiered at Venice and whose My Thoughts Are Silent screened at KVIFF, and Noah by director and screenwriter Marysia Nikitiuk. The documentary Traces, which she co-directed, had its world premiere and won the Audience Award in the Panorama section of this year’s Berlinale. Her debut feature, When the Trees Fall, earned a nomination for best debut at the 2018 Berlinale. The Czech Republic also has two representatives in the selection. They are from Tomáš Hodan, who will showcase his upcoming comedic film The Stones Are Rolling to Prague, which “recalls an iconic moment of the Czech 1990s through the story of preparations for the Rolling Stones’ mega-concert in Prague in 1990,” and Tomáš Pavlíček, who will present Czech cottage culture comedy A Few Branches Off. Meanwhile, Romanian-Hungarian director Cristina Groșan (Ordinary Failures, which premiered and was awarded at Venice) will present her mob drama Lesdenzero, a co-production between Czechia, Switzerland, Hungary and Romania. Polish director Olga Chajdas, known to Karlovy Vary audiences from Imago, will showcase her female road movie Tribe, while German artist Sebastian Fritzsch, whose debut Endzeit premiered at Berlin, will present his upcoming film Trainrider, and Slovenian writer and director Goran Vojnović will present the upcoming film adaptation of his own book Yugoslavia, My Fatherland.

‘Hansi’

Wrapping up the selection are the Slovak coming-of-age drama Cowgirl by Michal Blaško (Victim) and Austrian director Sebastian Brauneis’ boxing biography Hansi about Hans Orsolics, which captures 1960s Vienna. Check out the eight book titles in the first Book-to-Screen showcase and the film projects in the KVIFF Central Stage program below.

KVIFF Central Stage The Flying Mountain (Switzerland, Ireland, Austria) Direction, Screenplay: Nicolas Steiner Production: Katrin Renz, Stefan Jäger, Nicolas Steiner, David Collins, Eamon Hughes, Alexander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu, Bady Minck Screaming Girl (Ukraine, Ireland) Direction: Antonio Lukich Screenplay: Antonio Lukich, Ailbhe Keogan Production: Volodymyr Yatsenko, Anna Yatsenko, Jessie Fisk, Annie Barclay Noah (Ukraine, Croatia, Belgium) Direction, Screenplay: Marysia Nikitiuk Production: Igor Savychenko, Hrvoje Osvadić, Sébastien Delloye Lesdenzero (Czech Republic, Switzerland, Hungary, Romania) Direction: Cristina Groșan Screenplay: Arne Kohlweyer, Cristina Groșan Production: Marek Novák The Stones Are Rolling to Prague (Czech Republic, Slovakia) Direction, Screenplay: Tomáš Hodan Production: Jakub Kraus, Martin Palán, Tibor Búza A Few Branches Off (Czech Republic) Direction, Screenplay: Tomáš Pavlíček Production: Eva Váchová, Pavel Vácha Tribe (Poland, Albania) Direction, Screenplay: Olga Chajdas Production: Karolina Galuba Trainrider (Germany) Direction: Sebastian Fritzsch Screenplay: Jan Bredehöft, Sebastian Fritzsch Production: Corinna C. Poetter, Daniel Ehrenberg Yugoslavia, My Fatherland (Slovenia, North Macedonia, Serbia) Direction: Goran Vojnović Screenplay: Goran Vojnović, Aleksandar Popovski Production: Boštjan Ikovic, Miloš Ivanović Cowgirl (Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary) Direction: Michal Blaško Screenplay: Jakub Medvecký Production: Jakub Viktorín, Tomáš Hrubý Hansi (Austria) Direction: Sebastian Brauneis Screenplay: Sebastian Brauneis, Helmut Emersberger Production: Ulrich Gehmacher Book-to-Screen at KVIFF The True Way Out (Czech Republic) Author: Patrik Banga Genre: coming-of-age, autobiography Publisher: Host “True Way Out, journalist Patrik Banga’s memoir about growing up in a Roma community in Prague’s Žižkov neighborhood in the 1990s, won the Magnesia Litera award for best debut in 2023.”

Playing Wolf (Czech Republic) Author: Zuzana Říhová Genre: folk horror, psychological thriller Publisher: Argo Playing Wolf is “a village novel you want to read in the safety of the city,” KVIFF said. “This folk-horror thriller by writer and literary scholar Zuzana Říhová, former head of Czech Studies at Oxford, was successfully published in France and the USA by Éditions du Seuil and Catapult, respectively.” The Zone (Slovakia) Author: Daniel Majling Genre: graphic novel Publisher: Brak In this graphic novel by the author and playwright, “a mysteriously hostile space takes on the title role itself. Absurd characters, dark humor, striking visuals, and cult status among Central European comics fans (the novel received the Czech Muriel Prize) all contribute to its strong adaptation potential.”

Queen of Hearts (Moldova) Author: Iulian Ciocan Genre: dystopian novel Publisher: Polirom “Queen of Hearts, a dystopian satire by Moldovan author Iulian Ciocan, explores an ever-expanding, all-consuming crater in the middle of post-communist Chișinău, Moldova.” Aspic Bistro (Lithuania) Author: Ieva Dumbrytė Genre: magic-realism satire Publisher: Kitos knygos “Aspic Bistro by Ieva Dumbrytė, set in a surreal, almost Orwellian-controlled kitchen environment, won several awards in her native Lithuania, including the prize for the Most Creative Book of the Year.” Cupid at the Kremlin Wall (Georgia) Author: Aka Morchiladze Genre: historical drama, detective novel Publisher: Sulakauri Publishing “The historical drama Cupid at the Kremlin Wall takes place during a tragic train journey across Georgia, at the height of the Stalinist terror in the 1930s. Historian Aka Morchiladze, its author, is an accomplished writer who has over 30 novels published in 15 countries. He has written several screenplays, and his previous book Journey to Karabakh was adapted into a film.” The River Odyssey of Kora from Willow Meadow (Poland) Author: Adam Robiński Genre: children’s literature Publisher: Widnokrąg “A representative of children’s literature, the Polish title The River Odyssey of Kora From Willow Meadow by Adam Robiński tells the story of a young beaver named Kora with ecological relevance.” Amadoka (Ukraine) Author: Sophia Andrukhovych Genre: historical/war novel Publisher: The Old Lion Publishing House The war in the Donbas serves as the starting point in Amadoka, “a novel that combines an intimate human story with the vast historical trauma of Eastern Europe in a deeply cinematic way.” Writer Sophia Andrukhovych won the International Hermann Hesse Prize 2024 for it. Her debut novel Felix Austria won the BBC Ukrainian Book of the Year award and was adapted into a film titled Devoted.