The 57th Karlovy Range Movie Competition opened final night time with a spirited musical efficiency from Russell Crowe, and the vitality remained excessive this night with actor Ewan Mcgregor on the town to obtain the fest’s honorary President’s Award.

McGregor accepted the respect throughout an overflowing ceremony within the competition’s Grand Corridor, the place he was joined by his Daughter Clara McGregor, his mom, and associate Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

“Thank you so much for being here tonight. It means the world to me,” he stated as he picked up the award. “I believe so much in what we do as actors. I’m so fortunate to do what I love and I love what I do.”

The group contained in the room was vigorous. Czech audiences are notoriously welcoming to the celebrities they obtain right here in Karlovy Range and McGregor performed to the group.

“I was gonna say something in Czech and I had been trying to practice. But somebody called an ambulance because they thought I was having a medical emergency,” he joked.

Throughout the presentation, the competition screened a brief tribute video to McGregor that includes a group of his performances from Trainspotting to Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, which acquired the best cheers from the viewers. Nevertheless, the actor instructed the group that the one venture in his filmography that stands out is his most up-to-date.

“The highlight of what I’ve done today is to act with my daughter Clara McGregor,” he stated earlier than welcoming her on stage to introduce their 2023 highway film You Sing Loud, I Sing Louder. Within the pic, the pair play a fictional father-daughter duo who set out on a journey stuffed with sudden encounters throughout which they discover a means again to one another after a interval of alienation. Emma Westenberg directed the pic from a screenplay by Ruby Caster. McGregor served as an exec producer on the pic.

Actor Alicia Vikander acquired this 12 months’s first honorary President’s Award ultimately night time’s opening ceremony. Her newest pic Firebrand opened the fest following the presentation. The movie is a fictionalized story of Katherine Parr, the sixth and closing spouse of the tyrannical English King Henry VIII. Vikander performs Parr within the piece alongside an unrecognizable Jude Legislation, who fits up as King Henry. The pair debuted the movie at this 12 months’s Cannes Movie Competition.

Karlovy Range can also be set to fete Robin Wright and stalwart indie producer Christine Vachon with honorary gongs throughout the competition. Vachon may even current her newest pic, the breakout Sundance hit Previous Lives, by director Celine Track.

The jury for this 12 months’s Crystal Globe competitors is headed by Patricia Clarkson (Sharp Objects), who’s joined by producer Dora Bouchoucha, Sundance senior programmer John Nein, filmmaker Olmo Omerzu, and Irish actor Barry Ward.

Among the many Competitors lineup is Les chambres rouges (Crimson Rooms), the most recent pic from Canadian filmmaker Pascal Plante and The Hypnosis, starring Herbert Nordrum (The Worst Particular person In The World).

Karlovy Range runs June 30 – July 8.