The primary motif for the visible identification of this 12 months’s 59th version of the Karlovy Fluctuate Worldwide Movie Competition (KVIFF) is a straightforward human gesture: an embrace.
Organizers of the large summer season pageant within the picturesque Czech spa city described it as a “highly effective” image. Photographed with numerous folks in numerous conditions, the embraces might be seen on KVIFF promotions, together with on the streets of Prague. “Is it movie?” KVIFF asks on its web site. “Sure, however primarily it’s life!”
THR caught up with Zuzana Lednická of Prague-based graphic design studio Studio Najbrt, for which she has labored since 1995, later turning into a director and a associate. The recipient of a lot of design awards was the principle individual behind the creation of KVIFF’s visible identification this 12 months.
Lednická informed THR concerning the inspiration for the visible identification and why the world might have hugs greater than ever.
The motif for this 12 months’s visible identification of the KVIFF is an embrace – so easy however so highly effective. When and why did you select this gesture this 12 months for the movie pageant? What was the inspiration and what was the hope for the symbolism/message to share?
After a number of years of visuals based mostly on easy graphic symbols, I felt the necessity to return to a better narrative and to search out one thing atypical that connects folks’s lives and movie.
The gesture of the embrace is a straightforward however highly effective second, an emblem of closeness, friendship, love, and forgiveness. Embraces are a standard scene in movie, however we generally overlook about them in our each day lives.
Zuzana Lednická
Courtesy of Studio Najbrt
How did the state of cinema or the state of the world play into the selection of the embrace?
Another excuse was the nice degree of polarization on this planet right now, the place we are inclined to argue and never hear different folks, or we don’t need to hear. Social networks are solely making this case worse, and the creation of closed bubbles definitely doesn’t assist, both.
I don’t assume I’m the one one who’s bored with these fixed conflicts and who needs for extra mutual respect, even when we gained’t essentially agree on all the pieces.
After the visible identification was made public, I used to be stunned on the variety of folks with whom the posters resonated. And it certainly isn’t any coincidence that Cannes, too, had a visible this 12 months that was based mostly on the embrace. One thing within the air.
What number of embraces did you {photograph} for the pageant’s visible identification, and the way did you discover the folks within the pictures?
Photographer Václav Jirásek took greater than 100 images, from purely documentary photos of random folks all the way in which to extremely staged conditions, earlier than we discovered the best degree of ordinariness that might make the conditions seem like scenes from life and from movie.
We didn’t need to use actors, which is why – aside from one state of affairs – the pictures present actual mates or {couples}. Their actual intimacy and closeness thus naturally made it into the pictures. However the setting was necessary, too. We needed to seize totally different conditions with totally different folks, in order that it could be clear that what all of them share is the embrace, one thing that’s potential for everybody. We finally picked round 15 of the strongest motifs.
Did you think about using any current or archive embraces?
When sketching out the concepts, I seemed by means of current photographs from numerous movies, however for the ultimate visible identification, we shot all the pieces new and on our personal.
I seemed up your KVIFF 56 “The place’s Waldo”-inspired idea and cherished that too, so I’m curious: What is essential, what’s necessary to visible identification, particularly one for the Karlovy Fluctuate Movie Competition?
Our studio, headed by Aleš Najbrt, has been working for the pageant for 30 years already. Annually, we attempt to discover some sort of highly effective visible component. It may very well be {a photograph}, an illustration, or a graphic image. One thing that individuals will bear in mind, and ideally additionally one thing that may shock them. Our work for the pageant has concerned a sure degree of provocation because the starting. What’s extra, the pageant is a wonderful associate who isn’t afraid to take dangers.
Is there anything you wish to share about your work or Studio Najbrt’s work for the pageant?
A really invaluable a part of our work for the pageant is the annual interplay with folks – it’s an enormous social occasion, and we by no means know what the response to the visible shall be. This nervousness, mixed with curiosity and a slight tingling within the stomach, is one nice added worth that forces us to be open and attentive even in any case these 30 years.