Festival president Jiří Bartoška welcomes Willem Dafoe

Leading film and theatre actor Willem Dafoe has arrived at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. The two-time Oscar nominee will receive the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Contribution to World Cinema at KVIFF’s opening ceremony on Friday 1 July.

​On 1 July after 5pm, Willem Dafoe will greet the audience on the red carpet in front of the entrance to the Hotel Thermal’s Grand Hall. On 2 July, he will present the film Pasolini at 10:30pm in the Grand Hall. The screening will be preceded by a live recording session for the talk show “Na plovárně s Markem Ebenem” with audience participation. On 3 July at 11pm, Dafoe will present The Last Temptation of Christ at the Outdoor Cinema. 

The Crystal Globe for Outstanding Contribution to World Cinema at the 51st Karlovy Vary International Film Festival will be presented to leading film and theatre actor and two-time Oscar nominee Willem Dafoe.

In 1979, Willem Dafoe was given a small role in Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate from which he was fired. His first feature role came shortly after in Kathryn Bigelow's The Loveless. From there, he has gone on to perform in over 100 films - in Hollywood (John Carter, Spider-Man, The English Patient, Finding Nemo, Once Upon A Time In Mexico, Clear And Present Danger, White Sands, Mississippi Burning, Streets Of Fire, American Dreamz), independent U.S. cinema (Out of The Furnace, The Fault in Our Stars, Bad Country, John Wick,The Clearing, Animal Factory, The Boondock Saints, American Psycho), and abroad (Theo Angelopoulos’ The Dust Of Time, Yim Ho's Pavilion Of Women, Yurek Bogayevicz's Edges Of The Lord, Wim Wenders' Faraway, So Close, Nobuhiro Suwa's segment of Paris Je t'aime, Brian Gilbert's Tom & Viv, Christian Carion's Farewell, The Spierig Brothers’ Daybreakers, Daniel Nettheim's The Hunter, Anton Corbijn’s A Most Wanted Man and the international box-office hit Mr. Bean's Holiday).

Photo credit: Brad Trent

He selects projects based on the diversity of roles and opportunities to work with strong directors. He worked in the films of Wes Anderson (The Life Aquatic, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and The Fantastic Mr. Fox), Martin Scorsese (The Aviator, The Last Temptation Of Christ), Spike Lee (Inside Man), Julian Schnabel (Miral, Basquiat), Paul Schrader (Auto Focus, Affliction, Light Sleeper, The Walker, Adam Resurrected, Dog Eat Dog), David Cronenberg (Existenz), Abel Ferrara (Pasolini, 4:44: The Last Day On Earth, Go Go Tales, New Rose Hotel), David Lynch (Wild At Heart), William Friedkin (To Live And Die In LA), Werner Herzog (My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done), Oliver Stone (Born On The Fourth Of July, Platoon), Giada Colagrande (A Woman, Before It Had A Name), and Lars von Trier (Antichrist, Manderlay, and Nymphomaniac I & II).

He was twice nominated for an Academy Award (Platoon and Shadow Of The Vampire) and once for a Golden Globe. Among other nominations and awards, he received an LA Film Critics Award and an Independent Spirit Award.

Upcoming films include Yimou Zhang’s The Great Wall, Pixar’s Finding Dory, Tommy Wirkola’s What Happened to Monday?, Mark Williams’ The Headhunter’s Calling and Paul Schrader's Dog Eat Dog.

Dafoe is one of the founding members of The Wooster Group, the New York based experimental theatre collective. He created and performed in all of the group's work from 1977 thru 2005, both in the U.S. and internationally. Since then, he worked with Richard Foreman in Idiot Savant at The Public Theatre (NYC) and most recently two international productions with Robert Wilson: The Life & Death of Marina Abramovic and The Old Woman opposite Mikhail Baryshnikov.

In honour of Willem Dafoe, the Karlovy Vary film festival will show the film Pasolini by Abel Ferrara (July, 2^nd 10.30 p.m. Thermal, Grand Hall) and Martin Scorese´s The Last Temptation of Christ (July, 3th 11 p.m. Outdoor Cinema).