An annual international film festival in the western Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary is kicking off with awards for Oscar-nominated actress Uma Thurman, Academy Award winner Casey Affleck and film composer James Newton Howard.
Affleck, who won his first Oscar this year for his role in "Manchester by the Sea," and Thurman, nominated for an Oscar in 1994 for best supporting actress in "Pulp Fiction," will both receive the festival president's award Friday on the opening night of the festival's 52nd edition.
Howard, who created music for over 130 movies — including "The Hunger Games" and "Batman Begins" — will be honored for his outstanding contribution to world cinema.
The festival's grand jury will consider 12 movies for the top prize, the Crystal Globe, at event that runs through July 8.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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