The unpredictable is expected, the exceptional is the rule when selected directors from across Europe present their films in the highly anticipated sidebar of “Variety's Ten European Directors To Watch” at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF). At the invitation of European Film Promotion (EFP) and KVIFF, these acclaimed mostly first and second time directors will present their films to the young audiences and the key industry people in the Czech Republic festival centre July 1 – 2. The MEDIA Programme of the EU and the ten participating EFP member organisations are supporting the event. This year again sees HBO / Czech Republic serving as the main sponsor.

“The films range from top performers in their home markets to well-travelled festival favourites still seeking wider distribution to deliciously idiosyncratic low-budget tales”, says event curator and Variety critic Alissa Simon. “Last year, our selection included the eventual winner of the European Film Award for Discovery of the Year; we hope this year’s line up will be equally revelatory and appealing.”

The selection of thrilling and entertaining stories cover the whole diversity of films that young European cinema currently has to offer – from a dark Finnish farce like Iron Sky about Nazis on the moon, directed by Timo Vuorensola, to Norwegian Magnus Martens’ black comedy Jackpot, about four dodgy types who must share a multimillion kronor jackpot; from the UK’s Will Sharpe and Tom Kingsley's Black Pond in which an ordinary family is accused of murder when a stranger dies at the dinner table, to Belgian Geoffrey Enthoven's Come As You Are, a likable seriocomedy on handicapped persons' sexuality.

While Hell by Germany’s Tim Fehlbaum is created as post-apocalyptic survival tale, Denmark’s This Life – Some Must Die, So Others Can Live by Anne-Grethe Bjarup Riis is a historical drama set during WWII about the resistance movement in German-occupied Denmark. FIPRESCI winner Hemel by Sacha Polak from The Netherlands follows the sexual odyssey of a young woman and has a completely different focus than the moving Spanish film Wrinkles by Ignacio Ferreras, an animated study of the friendship between two seniors in a nursing home. A Trip by Nejc Gazvoda, produced by Aleš Pavlin who was this year’s Slovenian Producer on the Move, is told as a compelling feature about three best pals from high school, raising issues about life and the future in the same way as Iceland’s Either Way by Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson, which is shot as a visually appealing trip of two highway maintenance men through the barren wilderness of 1980's Iceland and stars this year’s Icelandic Shooting Star Hilmar Gudjonsson.

Now in its 15th year, the showcase of exciting young European directors and their films is yet one more example of how EFP and its partners foster interest in dynamic European Cinema. The predominantly young audiences from the Czech Republic and neighbouring countries on the one hand and key film industry people and press on the other get the chance to meet the directors and learn more about their ideas of filmmaking in Europe.