During this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival celebrated 80 years since its founding together with Variety, marking also 32 years of long-standing collaboration between the festival and the renowned entertainment magazine.

An unmissable part of the jubilee 60th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, which marks 80 years since its inception this year, will be a special edition of the popular "classic" section Out of the Past.

​In 2026, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) commemorates two important milestones: 80 years since the first festival, and the festival’s 60th edition. 

This year’s edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival will present a gala screening of a digitally restored copy of Věra Chytilová’s tragicomedy Tainted Horseplay.

For much of its existence, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival – which celebrates the 80th anniversary of its founding this year, was an important representative of Czechoslovak cinema. By presenting an award to Magda Vášáryová, the festival aims not just to express its respect for the performances of one of the greatest Slovak actresses of all time, but also to remember the unique artistic connection between the Czech and Slovak filmmakers who shaped our two countries’ shared cinematic history.

The LABO competition programme, a long-standing part of the Pragueshorts festival, once again focuses on innovation, creativity, and experimentation. The selection of ten films ranges from unexpected combinations of traditional filmmaking techniques and new technologies to fresh approaches to narrative and visual form. What unites them is a shared joy of discovery and a desire to push boundaries.

Director, producer, distributor, teacher, editor, and cinematographer Andrea Gatopoulos is coming to the Pragueshorts festival. Audiences can look forward to a programme of short films to which this pioneering filmmaker has contributed, as well as a masterclass in which Gatopoulos will present alternative approaches and tools in film development, financing, production, and distribution.

This year’s International Competition presents twenty-eight films made with the involvement of twenty-three countries. “The five blocks of films present a selection as diverse as the world of short films can possibly be. Besides the usual production powerhouses such as Western Europe and North America, the festival also introduces audiences to the cinema of countries that appear less frequently or rarely on domestic screens – for example, Estonia, South Africa, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, and Brazil,” says Pragueshorts’ director Radka Weiserová. 

From Thursday, January 15, to Saturday, January 17, 2026, Prague's Světozor cinema will host the fourth edition of the KVIFF Classics, organized by the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The event will once again present major works of world and Czechoslovak cinema that have undergone digital restoration and can only be seen on the big screen on rare occasions.