The main motif for the visual identity of this year’s 59th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) is a simple human gesture: an embrace.
Organizers of the big summer festival in the picturesque Czech spa town described it as a “powerful” symbol. Photographed with various people in various situations, the embraces can be seen on KVIFF promotions, including on the streets of Prague. “Is it film?” KVIFF asks on its website. “Yes, but mainly it is life!”
THR caught up with Zuzana Lednická of Prague-based graphic design studio Studio Najbrt, for which she has worked since 1995, later becoming a director and a partner. The recipient of a number of design awards was the main person behind the creation of KVIFF’s visual identity this year.
Lednická told THR about the inspiration for the visual identity and why the world may need hugs more than ever.
The motif for this year’s visual identity of the KVIFF is an embrace – so simple but so powerful. When and why did you choose this gesture this year for the film festival? What was the inspiration and what was the hope for the symbolism/message to share?
After several years of visuals based on simple graphic symbols, I felt the need to return to a greater narrative and to find something ordinary that connects people’s lives and film.
The gesture of the embrace is a simple but powerful moment, a symbol of closeness, friendship, love, and forgiveness. Embraces are a common scene in film, but we sometimes forget about them in our daily lives.
Zuzana Lednická
Courtesy of Studio Najbrt
How did the state of cinema or the state of the world play into the choice of the embrace?
Another reason was the great level of polarization in the world today, where we tend to argue and not hear other people, or we don’t want to listen. Social networks are only making this situation worse, and the creation of closed bubbles certainly doesn’t help, either.
I don’t think I’m the only one who is tired of these constant conflicts and who wishes for more mutual respect, even if we won’t necessarily agree on everything.
After the visual identity was made public, I was surprised at the number of people with whom the posters resonated. And it surely is no coincidence that Cannes, too, had a visual this year that was based on the embrace. Something in the air.
How many embraces did you photograph for the festival’s visual identity, and how did you find the people in the photos?
Photographer Václav Jirásek took more than a hundred photographs, from purely documentary images of random people all the way to highly staged situations, before we found the right level of ordinariness that would make the situations look like scenes from life and from film.
We didn’t want to use actors, which is why – except for one situation – the photographs show real friends or couples. Their real intimacy and closeness thus naturally made it into the photographs. But the setting was important, too. We wanted to capture different situations with different people, so that it would be clear that what they all share is the embrace, something that is possible for everyone. We ultimately picked around 15 of the strongest motifs.
Did you consider using any existing or archive embraces?
When sketching out the ideas, I looked through existing shots from various films, but for the final visual identity, we shot everything new and on our own.
I looked up your KVIFF 56 “Where’s Waldo”-inspired concept and loved that too, so I am curious: What is key, what is important to a good visual identity, especially one for the Karlovy Vary Film Festival?
Our studio, headed by Aleš Najbrt, has been working for the festival for 30 years already. Each year, we try to find some kind of powerful visual element. It could be a photograph, an illustration, or a graphic symbol. Something that people will remember, and ideally also something that will surprise them. Our work for the festival has involved a certain level of provocation since the beginning. What is more, the festival is an excellent partner who is not afraid to take risks.
Is there anything else you would like to share about your work or Studio Najbrt’s work for the festival?
A very valuable part of our work for the festival is the annual interaction with people – it’s a huge social event, and we never know what the response to the visual will be. This nervousness, combined with curiosity and a slight tingling in the belly, is one great added value that forces us to be open and attentive even after all these 30 years.
