Robert Pattinson, best known for the “Twilight” franchise and more recent movies like “Good Time,” will receive the President’s Award at the closing ceremony of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival July 7, the Czech fest announced Wednesday. Other honorees at the festival include director-writer Barry Levinson and actor-director-writer Tim Robbins.
David and Nathan Zellner’s Western comedy “Damsel,” in which Pattinson stars alongside Mia Wasikowska, screens at the festival Saturday. David Zellner will also be at the event. Pattinson has recently been shooting David Michod’s Netflix original production “The King,” a Shakespeare-inspired film starring Timothee Chalamet, Joel Edgerton and Lily-Rose Depp.
The nine-day event in the historic spa town kicked off Friday with Taika Waititi, director of “Thor: Ragnarok,” among the guests. Waititi is in the Czech Republic shooting “Jojo Rabbit,” and is joined at the festival by Carthew Neal, producer of the film.
“Jojo Rabbit,” Waititi’s sixth film as director, is based on his script about a boy with a Hitler fantasy during WWII who discovers his mother is hiding a Jewish person in the house. The film, starring Sam Rockwell and Scarlett Johansson, is adapted from the book “Caging Skies” by Christine Leunens. Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie, another member of the cast, is at the festival to present Debra Granik’s “Leave No Trace.”
Waititi, who is also an actor, had Karlovy Vary auds laughing at the Midnight Movies section in 2014 as the New Zealand vampire Viago in “What We Do in the Shadows,” currently being adapted as a TV series.
His performance in “Hunt for the Wilderpeople,” which he also directed and co-wrote, was screened at Karlovy Vary in 2016, after which he helmed the blockbuster “Thor: Ragnarok.”
Neal, a New Zealand film and television producer who has long collaborated with Waititi, was one of Variety’s 2016 Producers to Watch.
The fest also announced that Portuguese actress Joana Ribeiro will join director Terry Gilliam to present “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” July 4. Ribeiro plays a Spanish girl, Angelica, and later a hardened, older version of the character.
