Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, Harvey Keitel Join Stars at Karlovy Vary

As if the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) needed more star power for the double anniversary of its 60th edition in its 80th year, it has lined up Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick and Harvey Keitel to join the list of celebrities in attendance at the Czech film fest this year.

The bold names were unveiled on Tuesday along with Dustin Hoffman, Juliette Binoche and legendary cinematographer Robert Richardson, who will receive this year’s Crystal Globes for outstanding artistic contributions to world cinema, plus Jeffrey Wright, who will be honored with KVIFF’s President’s Award.

For its latest edition, which runs July 3-11, the Czech cinema celebration previously unveiled Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jesse Eisenberg as President’s Award honorees.

“Renowned American actor Harvey Keitel will make his third appearance at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival,” organizers said on Tuesday. “At the festival’s 39th edition in 2004, Keitel was awarded a Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema. Eleven years later, he returned to Karlovy Vary in order to introduce Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth, in which he played one of the main roles. The film won the Právo Audience Award, which Keitel accepted in person.”

On the occasion of Keitel’s visit to KVIFF 2026, the festival will present Mean Streets, the screening of which the star will attend.

The anniversary edition of the Czech fest will also become a special family affair. “Actress, producer, and director Kyra Sedgwick and actor, director, producer, and musician Kevin Bacon, together with [children] Travis and Sosie Bacon, will present the film Family Movie,” organizers unveiled. The horror-comedy co-directed by Bacon and Sedgwick and starring their children had its world premiere at the 2026 SXSW Film Festival.

Sedgwick is an Emmy Award- and a Golden Globe-winning actress, producer and director “whose film and television work has captured and defined the zeitgeist,” KVIFF highlighted.

It lauded Bacon as “one of the foremost actors whose talent for balancing starring roles with powerful supporting characters in film, television and on stage has allowed him to build a varied and critically acclaimed body of work.”

KVIFF on Tuesday also unveiled its opening and closing films for this year’s edition. It will open with the Argentinian-Spanish documentary The Match, directed by Juan Cabral and Santiago Franco, which chronicles the 1986 soccer World Cup match between Argentina and England, which is infamous for Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” goal. “One of the most captivating movies at this year’s Cannes proves that certain iconic moments from sports history can touch the very essence of human existence,” said KVIFF artistic director Karel Och.

KVIFF’s double anniversary edition will wrap up with Noah Segan’s crime drama The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, starring John Turturro, which had its world premiere at Sundance.