The Circuit

by Nick Holdsworth
Blessed with a weekend of sunshine – very unusual for usually raining mid-summer Bohemia – the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival got off to a great start this year.

Robert De Niro blew into town to open the festival with Barry Levinson-directed new Hollywood-is-hell comedy "What Just Happened" and accepted a lifetime achievement award on the stage of the Velky Zal – Grand Hall – of fest HQ the Hotel Thermal.

Brave man, De Niro – he delivered his acceptance speech in Czech, tripping over virtually every syllable. He can be forgiven: Czech is a language with a downer on vowels and not the easiest Slavic tongue to master.

De Niro had been preceded by Variety's very own executive editor (features) Steven Gaydos, who picked up an award recognizing his work in promoting European film through the Variety Critics’ Choice section of the festival these past 11 years.

A brisk attitude to authority was required of hacks on Saturday at De Niro’s packed press conference.

There was heavy security – which is a rarity at this laid-back Bohemian fest - and late arriving journos were locked out five minutes before the gig was due to start, including Variety’s own man on the spot, your faithful blogger.

As a Fleet Street-trained British hack, that was a red rag to bull. Within minutes a harassed festival press flak had been nagged into letting not only one but four late arrivals.

Still, De Niro was 14 minutes late himself for what turned out to be a reasonably good press conference for an actor not noted for his loquacity.

Among the gems teased out of him – his backing for Barack Obama and opposition to the proposed Screen Actors Guild strike.

Still, apart from the occasional red carpet star turns, this side of the festival is remote to the great majority of visitors.

A truly democratic fest where hordes of students and other youngsters camp out or sleep rough in the parks (this year not such a damp proposition as normally), festival screenings are virtually always packed and even the relatively pampered members of the press have to be up with the larks to get tickets.

The downside is that in the smaller screening rooms you are often sitting cheek by jowl with the great unwashed – or much to my distress on Saturday morning during a screening of Hal Ashby’s classic “The Last Detail” – with the great snoring shapes of a couple of large Czech chaps sleeping off a night on the tiles.

Still, mustn’t grumble.  By mid-fest the sun was still shining and Monday’s night’s Variety Critics' Choice party for once was not rained out.