The principle motif for the visible identification of this yr’s 59th version of the Karlovy Range Worldwide Movie Pageant (KVIFF) is an easy human gesture: an embrace.
Organizers of the massive summer time pageant within the picturesque Czech spa city described it as a “highly effective” image. Photographed with varied folks in varied 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 accomplice. The recipient of numerous design awards was the principle individual behind the creation of KVIFF’s visible identification this yr.
Lednická instructed THR concerning the inspiration for the visible identification and why the world may have hugs greater than ever.
The motif for this yr’s visible identification of the KVIFF is an embrace – so easy however so highly effective. When and why did you select this gesture this yr 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 primarily based on easy graphic symbols, I felt the necessity to return to a higher narrative and to search out one thing peculiar that connects folks’s lives and movie.
The gesture of the embrace is an easy 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 day by 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?
One more reason was the nice degree of polarization on this planet at this time, the place we are likely to argue and never hear different folks, or we don’t need to pay attention. 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 uninterested in these fixed conflicts and who needs for extra mutual respect, even when we received’t essentially agree on every thing.
After the visible identification was made public, I used to be shocked on the variety of folks with whom the posters resonated. And it absolutely is not any coincidence that Cannes, too, had a visible this yr that was primarily based 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 images?
Photographer Václav Jirásek took greater than 100 images, from purely documentary pictures of random folks all the best way to extremely staged conditions, earlier than we discovered the precise degree of ordinariness that will make the conditions appear like scenes from life and from movie.
We didn’t need to use actors, which is why – aside from one scenario – the pictures present actual associates or {couples}. Their actual intimacy and closeness thus naturally made it into the pictures. However the setting was necessary, too. We needed to seize completely different conditions with completely different folks, in order that it will be clear that what all of them share is the embrace, one thing that’s attainable for everybody. We in the end picked round 15 of the strongest motifs.
Did you think about using any present or archive embraces?
When sketching out the concepts, I regarded by way of present pictures from varied movies, however for the ultimate visible identification, we shot every thing new and on our personal.
I regarded up your KVIFF 56 “The place’s Waldo”-inspired idea and liked that too, so I’m curious: What is essential, what’s necessary to a superb visible identification, particularly one for the Karlovy Range Movie Pageant?
Our studio, headed by Aleš Najbrt, has been working for the pageant for 30 years already. Every year, we attempt to discover some type of highly effective visible ingredient. It might be {a photograph}, an illustration, or a graphic image. One thing that individuals will bear in mind, and ideally additionally one thing that can shock them. Our work for the pageant has concerned a sure degree of provocation for the reason that starting. What’s extra, the pageant is a wonderful accomplice who just isn’t afraid to take dangers.
Is there the rest you wish to share about your work or Studio Najbrt’s work for the pageant?
A really priceless 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.