While Karlovy Vary may be best known for its star wattage and warm midsummer embrace of fiction auteurs, this year’s 59th edition (July 4–12) once again made a powerful case for documentary’s enduring vitality. Across the official selection, sidebars, and special screenings, nonfiction titles proved indispensable in reflecting Europe and the region’s evolving identities, eccentricities, and contradictions. This festival dispatch includes reviews of Grand Prix-winner Better Go Mad in the Wild, TrepaNation, Action Item, and Divia.
Action Item
Slovakia’s guča films and Portugal’s Kino Rebelde have shared with Documentary Magazine an exclusive first clip from Action Item, the sophomore feature-length documentary by filmmaker and visual artist Paula Ďurinová (Lapilli). It will screen in the Proxima Competition at the 59th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (July 4–12) and concurrently in the International Competition at the 36th edition of FIDMarseille (July 8–13).