Karlovy Vary unveils competition docus

Latvian producer Bruno Ascuks will preside over a five-member jury that includes Russian producer-director Alexander Gutman, Czech helmer Miroslav Janek, Austrian director Ruth Mader and U.S. critic and professor Dennis West.

Religion figures in "The Hour Is Near," a look at evangelists in Latvia, directed by Juris Poskus; "Jerusalem My Love," by Danish helmer Jeppe Ronde; and Swedish director Esaias Baitel's short "Esther's Book."

Social problems color "Madre Cuba," from Salomon Shang of Spain; "Repatriation," by Kim Dong-won of South Korea; and Polish entry "83 Zlota Street," by Ewa Borzecka.

Swiss director Peter Liechti takes a tragicomic view of himself in "Lucky Jack -- Three Attempts to Stop Smoking." Found footage is pieced together in Arash T. Riahi's Austrian-German co-production "The Souvenirs of Mr. X."

Also in the feature-length category are "Seventeen," by Didier Nion (France); "The Last Victory," from John Appel (the Netherlands); "The Center," Stanislaw Mucha's search for the geographical heart of Europe (Germany); and Czech entry "No Regrets," by Theodora Remundova.

Making short work of it

The shorts include Hungarian helmer Gyula Nemes' black-and-white "The Dike of Transience"; "Peppers and Nudes -- The Photographer Edward Weston," by Joachim Haupt and Sabine Pollmeier (Germany); and Belarus women giving birth in Galina Adamovich's "The Continuation."

Poetry meets film in several of the short works, including Pawel Siczek's return to post-Communist Poland, "The Other Autumn"; Korean helmer Kim Hye-jee's "Gaze"; and "The Passion of Marina," by Russia's Andrei V. Osipov.

"Days Under," from Jiska Rickels (Netherlands), and "Wedding of Silence," by Pavel Medvedev (Russia), round out the competition lineup.