Meet Czech Interpreter Helena Koutná Who Gives Voice to the Stars of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) is not just a Czech celebration of cinema. It is a global affair. The fest in the Czech spa town regularly opens the doors of its cinemas and hotels and its audiences’ hearts to films from around the globe. This year’s 60th edition, in the fest’s 80th year of existence, is no different. In fact, artistic director Karel Och unveiled his team’s selection for the double anniversary edition by highlighting that thenearly 40titles in the main program “boast extraordinary geographical diversity.”

And he highlighted: “The exclusive presence of Myanmar and Colombia in the Crystal Globe competition naturally connects across a six-decade arc with the progressive decision of one of the festival’s founders and long-time director of programming, A. M. Brousil, to focus intensively on the then-young and undiscovered non-European cinemas.”

Allowing audiences to see big stars from abroad or cinematically travel the globe and afterwards have discussions with the filmmakers requires special skills, of course. Interpreters who take the stage with creators from around the world during the festival facilitate those exchanges.

One face that regular KVIFF attendees will recognize is Helena Koutná, who can be seen handling many of the big interpretations across the festival days and nights, whether honors or post-screening Q&As, with aplomb –and a smile on her face. Whether it is interpreting Czech festival leaders’ comments about honorees or films into English, or English-speaking filmmakers’ thoughts into Czech, she is helping with making their voices heard.

On the first two days of KVIFF 2026, she has already been on stage with the likes of Dustin Hoffman and Jesse Eisenberg. Ahead of another busy fest, running through July 11, Koutná took some time to share insight into her language work during and outside the fest, her meetings with celebrities, and how she makes it all look and sound so easy.

When did you start interpreting for KVIFF, and how did that role come about?

If I am not mistaken, I first went to KVIFF as an interpreter in 1997. Interpreting services at KVIFF were – and still are – provided by Artlingua, an agency I had been working for as a freelancer for some time, and that year they invited me to come along. It was an invitation I certainly didn’t have to think about twice before accepting!

How many people are part of the interpreter team working for the fest? And do you have a title for your festival work that I should mention? Behind your back, I have called you “interpreter guru”?

Back in 1997, there was a large team of interpreters mainly because, with some exceptions, films were not screened with subtitles. There were interpreting booths in the cinemas, and members of the audience listened to simultaneous interpretation via headphones. In addition to Czech, interpretation was provided from and into a number of other languages, including English, German, French, Spanish and Russian. The workload was pretty high, especially as more reference materials, such as screeners and scripts, were becoming available. And apart from their presence in the booths, interpreters were spending a lot of time preparing for their assignments, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. It certainly put the interpreters’ skills to a proper test!

Film introductions and Q&As after the screenings were also interpreted simultaneously, as were press conferences and press interviews. KVIFF was in a way a professional gathering of colleagues, many of whom usually did not have a chance to meet during the course of other work. There were easily up to 30 interpreters working at the festival at any one time.

Later on, when subtitles were introduced, this number dwindled to around eight who cover introductions, Q&As and occasional press conferences and interviews. I am a member of this interpreting team.

I remember the first time seeing you on stage and the person sitting next to me leaning over and asking: “How does this lady do this and do it so quickly?” And I thought: she is smiling too!
Is there a trick or secret to what you do?

No magic or tricks, just some techniques all interpreters learn. There are two basic types of interpreting: simultaneous and consecutive. Simultaneous interpreters listen to the speaker via headphones and, at the same time, interpret the speaker’s words, i.e., they speak simultaneously with the speaker. During consecutive interpreting, interpreters make notes while the speaker is speaking, and when the speaker makes a pause, they interpret what has been said.

Note-taking is a skill which is taught at interpreting courses. It involves the use of various symbols, such as little squares, circles or squiggles which resemble simple pictograms, as well as lines or arrows and abbreviations. Some of them are borrowed from English; for example, to indicate the plural, „s“ is added to a symbol or abbreviation.

There are standard symbols used by all interpreters as well as those made up by individual interpreters either for general use or for specific assignments.For example, at a film festival, F will stand for „film“. I may quickly scrawl a heart to indicate something positive or a star as the beginning/start/launch of something. The general idea is to note down things which you may not easily remember, such as figures, and key words to help you recall the „story.“

What languages do you know that you translate to or from Czech at KVIFF?

My professional language combination is rather limited; my working languages are only English and Russian. I am also able to work from Slovak into English, but I can’t speak Slovak. This is due to historical development – I grew up in Czechoslovakia, where it was common to hear Slovak on the radio or on television.

The rest of the year, do you work with film/TV, or what kind of work do you take on when KVIFF is not taking place?

I do work at other film festivals, namely the One World human rights documentary film festival in Prague and the Ji.hlava international documentary film festival, where films are still interpreted simultaneously, and I was also involved in the organization of ÍRÁN:CI, a festival of Iranian films in Prague which is currently taking a pause.

For several years running, I have been interpreting the live broadcasts of the Oscars ceremonies for Czech TV, and I am also often to be found in the interpreting booth at the equivalent Czech national ceremony: the Czech Lion Awards.

However, the bulk of my work is for the EU institutions: the Council, the Commission, the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice in Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg. That means a rather diverse range of topics for which interpreters need to research and build vocabularies with the help of reference materials. Thorough preparation is a must for any type of assignment, and many interpreters develop special expertise in particular fields. My areas of specialization include legal negotiations and arbitration hearings.

Is live interpreting a creative mind’s words in any way different from your other work over the years?

Absolutely. Stage interpreting at film festivals is almost a discipline by itself. A lot can happen in a very short space of time, general language can suddenly turn rather technical, jokes and wordplay are quite common, references crop up, and sometimes interpreters become part of the show. But the main task remains to facilitate communication and to convey the message so that those who do not understand the language of the speaker have the same experience as if they did.

Interpreters do not translate individual words; they pass on the idea using the words and phrases which would be naturally used by the native speaker of the language into which they interpret. As appropriate, this applies not only to the content, but also to emotions, tone of voice and occasionally also gestures.

You must have met so many Hollywood film stars and directors over the years. Any particularly special ones for you? And how was the experience of meeting them?

This is an easy as well as a difficult question to answer. Easy, because the stars I have had the opportunity to encounter are highly accomplished professionals, and that generally means that they are hard-working, modest and humble people. Their life mission is to use their trade as a channel to make the world richer, to offer joy, relief, beauty or food for thought. That’s also how they approach their interactions with their audiences. And they are able to appreciate and respect the work of other professionals, which extends to interpreters.

Obviously, it is always a pleasure to stand on the stage next to someone whose work I admire or who was involved in the creation of a film I like. I enormously enjoyed a Q&A with Susan Sarandon for several reasons: Thelma & Louise is one of my favorite films; I happened to translate the subtitles for the film a few years before; and her conversation with the audience was most refreshing.

Similarly, having translated the subtitles for Rain Man, I was happy to be able to share the stage with its director, Barry Levinson [and Dustin Hoffman this year]. I always welcome the opportunity to work with Vitaly Mansky, whose work I find amazing. It was great fun to interpret several Q&As with Alexander Payne, who clearly enjoyed meeting the audience and answering their questions. And the list could go on: Antonio Banderas, Zdeněk Svěrák, Patricia Clarkson, Johnny Depp… It really is difficult to pick some and leave out the others.

Why and how did you learn to interpret? And for people wondering about the correct phrases: is what you do “interpreting” or is there a different word we should use? “Translating” is different, correct? Or do you do both?

Interpreting and translation are two separate professions. They involve different skills, although they both require a thorough knowledge of both the source and the target language. Translators deal with written text; they have more time for their work as well as access to external sources. Interpreters deal with spoken words in real time. A colleague of mine has recently used a nice analogy to explain the difference. Imagine an ice-hockey player and a figure skater. They both need to master the skill of ice-skating, but their performance on ice could not be more different. You certainly wouldn’t expect an ice-hockey player to land a triple axel!

As for translating and interpreting, there are people who do both, but most prefer to focus on one or the other. I have always been translating as well as interpreting.

How did you end up becoming an interpreter?

I was introduced to the fascinating world of languages when I was eight years old. I was sent to a primary school with extended language teaching, which meant that I started even the mandatory Russian, this being the times of socialist Czechoslovakia, earlier than other pupils. It was an intensive program, and two years later English was added, and later on German as well. I think I was lucky to have teachers who were able to make it fun for us to learn.

We continued at the grammar school, and when it came to choosing a university course, I decided to try English and Russian at the translation and interpreting department of Charles University in Prague. It was a five-year master’s program which, for me, started before the 1989 Velvet Revolution in the Czech Republic and finished after the world re-opened for us following the change of regime.

I have always found it enjoyable to try and learn other languages and understand different cultures. I love traveling, and I find that knowing at least a few words of the local language makes an enormous difference to the overall experience. For me, traveling is about the local sounds, flavors and smells as much as it is about historical sights or monuments. And it is immensely satisfying to be able to help people communicate and express themselves without being hampered by a possible lack of knowledge of another language.

Do you ever actually get to see films during KVIFF, or does the interpreting keep you too busy? Were there any films in recent years that particularly inspired or impressed you?

I do, but usually not many. In general, I try to make sure that I see the films which are followed by Q&As which I am assigned to as an interpreter. As you can imagine, it helps to have seen the scenes or characters which people may be referring to in their questions. And sometimes I have time to stay for a screening which I helped introduce. There have been quite a few films which I liked and which stayed with me; to name just a few which come to mind, they were The Cakemaker, Waves, Loveable and Our Lovely Pig Slaughter.

We often write about AI these days. Do you see AI as a possible threat to the work you and your colleagues do? (I was at a conference last week where a live AI scroll was shown on a screen during an English-language session, and some errors made me laugh. eg AI misheard “project” for “pudding”)

It is true that the pace at which AI has been developing is astonishing. It is now able to provide translations between many languages which are becoming perfectly usable for certain purposes. It is still not fully reliable, and AI output needs to be checked by humans. AI translations also tend to be clumsy, and they lack depth and variety. I don’t dare predict whether they will ever match human work or how long it may still take.

Interpreting is yet another story. Apart from conversion from one language into another, it needs to take into account cultural nuances, context and references which are often merely hinted at, and do it instantly. Accents also play a role – especially in English, which has become a new lingua franca and is spoken by many non-native speakers. Deciphering various accents can be a challenge for experienced human interpreters who are used to hearing all sorts of variants of the language, and it is proving a really hard nut to crack for AI.

It seems to me that even though there may be circumstances in the future where AI interpreting might be acceptable and sufficiently accurate, there will still be situations where human interpreting will be preferable, either due to the nature of the topic, the mood it helps create or even security reasons.

Is there anything else you’d love to share about your KVIFF work, interpreting, or anything else?

Interpreters can make a big difference in human interaction; their work can enhance an experience, make work more efficient, and sometimes even save lives. This is true for all sorts of circumstances – business negotiations, technical production, training and education, medical treatment, cultural events, armed conflict…

It applies without exception that for an interpreter to do a good job, they need to prepare for every assignment. That’s why it is important that clients provide as much reference material as possible. This includes speeches or their drafts – an interpreter doesn’t need a final version with polished wording, they need to know what vocabulary to prepare, draft documents, drawings, lists of participants – as it can be rather difficult to catch names, product specifications, patient histories, event programs or, in the case of film festivals, names of guests, film titles and screeners or scripts. And it is always helpful to discuss technical arrangements with the interpreter in order to decide which mode of interpreting is most suitable.

Included in the package an interpreter offers to their client is the benefit of their past experience, and the reason for their questions and requests for information is a wish to provide a good service and to make sure that communication is relaxed, smooth and efficient. And, if the circumstances permit, to bring smiles to the faces of all those involved.