On Friday, 3 July, one of Europe's oldest A-class film festivals – the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival – begins in the Czech Republic, where the documentary "To Die to Live" co-produced by Ukraine, Latvia and Slovakia will celebrate its world premiere, Edmunds Jansons' full-length animated film "Born in the Jungle" and Evalds Lācis' puppet film "The Mushroom’s Life" have also been selected for festival programmes.
Published: 03.07.2026.
The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) is one of the most important events in film life in Central and Eastern Europe, it has acquired class A status back in 1956, but has been awarded its Crystal Globe since 1948. The Karlovy Vary Festival is celebrating a round anniversary this year, but due to its complicated history, the anniversary is marked as 60 / 80, with a special program dedicated to it – KVIFF 60/80. About 200 films from all over the world are selected annually for the Karlovy Vary program, viewers buy more than 140,000 film tickets, and about 1300 film professionals visit the industry section annually.
On Monday, July 6, documentary To Die to Live by Ukrainian director Yulia Hontaruk will have its world premiere in the festival's Special Screenings program. Film was made in cooperation with the Latvian studio VFS Films and will be shown in Latvia in September. The main characters of the film are Shakhta, Dancer and Potter – three Ukrainian guys who went to war as volunteers in 2014, when Russian aggression first reached Ukraine, and director Julia went with them to the front line, thinking that she would make a film about the war. However, now she admits that the real film began at that moment when the guys returned from the war and tried to find themselves in the civilian world, learn to live again and look for a way back to the everyday life of peace. And then came a new turmoil – in 2022, Russia began a full-scale invasion, and the guys returned to the front again. The film covers twelve years of war and change – an intimate and deeply human story, portraying this entire generation of Ukrainians who have had to become warriors and have been searching for an answer to the question of what it really means to live if you have already come to terms with the possibility of dying for a decade.
Yulia Hontaruk is a Ukrainian director and producer living in Kiev, one of the most determined documentarians of her generation, co-founder of the collective of cinematographers "BABYLON'13", which was created to document the 2013 Euromaidan uprising in Ukraine. The Mariupol Fortress series, created by Yulia Hontaruk, which documents soldiers besieged at the Azovstal factory via video calls , has been shown in 20 countries, including at the NATO summit. To Die to Live is the director's most personal work, a deep and painful journey spanning 12 years.
Latvian producer Uldis Cekulis: "Julia's film reminds us that behind every headline and every statistic there are people who bear invisible scars, but they have an unwavering determination to protect their loved ones. Maybe that's why this story moved me so deeply and I felt that this was a film that definitely needed to be shot. Its message extends far beyond Ukraine's borders, it is about the invisible price of freedom, about the courage to choose life again and again. My own journey with this film began in the winter of 2022 and solidified in the spring, when the film project received the support of the National Film Centre of Latvia. Back in the summer, we presented it in the industry section of the Karlovy Vary Festival KVIFF Eastern Promises, so it seems extremely significant and symbolic to return to Karlovy Vary this year for the world premiere of the film with our international team and especially the film's characters – Shakhta, Dancer and Potter."
In Latvia, the film will be released at the beginning of September, it will be the opening film for the 30th anniversary film screeningof the Baltic Sea Docs on September 8. Director Julia Hontaruk will also come to this Latvian premiere in Riga to meet Latvian audience.
This year's Karlovy Vary Festival programmes also feature world-famous Latvian animation – films from studios Atom Art and Animation Brigade. The Horizons section, aimed at the widest audience, provides an overview of the current festival season and showcases the latest films from Cannes, Berlinale, Venice and other major film festivals; four screenings in this program are planned for director Edmunds Jansons' feature-length animated film Born in the Jungle / Laimīgie, which had its world premiere a week ago at the famous Annnecy Animation Festival in France. From the director Ēvalds Lācis - short film The Mushroom’s Life enters the Karlovy Vary Festival from the Prague Short Film Festival programme – it is included in the PragueShorts at KVIFF section.