NEWS

Karlovy Vary to honor Les Blank, present Dylan film

This year's Karlovy Vary International Film Festival will pay tribute to the great American documentary director Les Blank, a music-film specialist whose New Orleans classic Always for Pleasure was screened at MOFFOM 2006. Focusing on roots and ethnic music, Blank has cast his eye on blues, zydeco, norteňa, Appalachian folk and polka over a nearly five-decade career. Blank is expected to attend the tribute, part of the July festival's Forum of Independents.

Karlovy Vary is also reportedly set to host the first Czech screening of I'm Not There, Todd Haynes' critically acclaimed, Oscar-nominated meditation on the lives of Bob Dylan. Palace Pictures will distribute the film in the Czech Republic on DVD. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglová, stars of Once and featured guests at last year's MOFFOM, can be heard on the 2-CD I'm Not There soundtrack performing Dylan's "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere."