Golden Pigeons Only Beautiful Things to Look At KVIFF 2026
I recently left Karlovy Vary after a week and a half spent soaking up the region’s beautiful films. Now, I’m in Prague taking stock of the festival and exploring some new cinematic landscapes, wandering away from the cinema halls entirely. While I always cherish seeing the breadth of central and eastern European filmmaking at KVIFF, I always make sure to seek out the rich tapestry of Czech works that populate this celebration. My recent viewing trip brought me back to three regional films that captivated me, two of which were honored at the festival’s conclusion.
The first standout was Martina Buchelová’s Lover, Not a Fighter, which clinched the Proxima Competition. This is a modern screwball romance that manages to capture the chaotic energy of youth culture struggling with gendered clichés, modern isolationism, and personal loss. At its heart is Andrej (Adam Kubala), a character navigating his feelings for Miša (Michaela Kostková). His journey is complicated by immaturity, alcoholism, and an unstable home life—he lives with his grandmother while his debt-ridden father pursues a significantly younger partner. These tribulations coalesce into a frank and endearing coming-of-age story, offering a surprisingly poignant, even bleak, look at adolescence through the lens of modern romance.
Buchelová employs a dynamic visual style, frequently utilizing vertical video compositions that mimic cellphone footage before sometimes flexing them to classical widescreen for dramatic effect. The film’s rhythm mirrors the digital world it depicts, tracking Andrej and Miša’s evolving relationship from a drunken meet-cute at a tram stop to their difficult split and eventual remarriage. What makes the film truly refreshing is how loosely yet tightly conceived its writing is. It uses shifting chapters and internal monologues that don’t feel forced, allowing seemingly extraneous moments—like Andrej fantasizing about boybands or Miša’s father investing in an underground bunker—to ground the characters in emotional realism. The sincerity of the performances, where every actor delivers every scene with genuine emotion, elevates this delightful feature debut about modern romance and instability.
Moving away from the lightheartedness of Buchelová, a profoundly darker cinematic experience was Pepa Lubojacki’s documentary, If Pigeons Turned to Gold. This piece is formally experimental and ruthlessly raw, diving deep into the intergenerational trauma and cyclical drug addiction within her family. The film focuses on her brother, a houseless alcoholic, and their similarly troubled cousins in their unhoused lives. Lubojacki uses a chaotic sonic and visual language, blending grating techno music with intertitle cards that pose haunting questions about grief and memory. The use of AI animation to bring childhood photos to life—where the subjects speak English—is notably off-putting, designed to reflect the fractured conceptions of an upbringing filled with pain hiding behind smiles.
This emotional whirlpool ultimately pulls the filmmaker into the narrative as her personal struggles, including recent bouts with suicidal ideation, become more prominent as she attempts to save her brother. The film’s central question—what if those we dismiss were treated as treasures?—is mirrored in the documentary’s core theme, creating an intense reflection on how tragedy and regret shape the soul.
Finally, Ivan Ostrochovský’s period piece, Only Beautiful Things to Look At, tackles the high-wire act of navigating social change and personal identity against a backdrop of historical oppression. Set in the 1980s, the film follows Ingrid (Anna Geislerová), a pragmatic doctor determined to become chief surgeon, who faces barriers rooted in gender and political affiliation. The narrative deepens when she pursues a policy that seeks to sterilize Romani women, forcing her to confront institutional bigotry. The story pivots on an encounter with Agáta (Simona Boledovičová), a half-white, half-Romani woman, leading to a surrogate mother-daughter bond. Ostrochovský masterfully tells the story mostly from Ingrid’s perspective, allowing the viewer to witness the shift from oppressor to oppressed. While the intimate performances are mesmerizing—Ingrid attempts to melt her icy exterior while Agáta seeks acceptance—the film ultimately offers a complex, if sometimes uneven, statement on realizing that the people one seeks to control are fundamentally human.
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