The festival section "2008: A Musical Odyssey" will offer a diverse and topical convergence of music and film this year, from music videos to the more than three-hour presentation of The First Emperor from the New York Metropolitan Opera House. A powerful visual and musical experience will be offered by the road movie Sigur Rós: Heima, in which the Icelandic post-rock stars perform in the open air amid the scenery of their native island. In the biopic Scott Walker: 30 Century Man the testimonies of David Bowie, Brian Eno and Alison Goldfrapp paint a portrait of the cult singer shrouded in mystery. American director Ethan Higbee will be coming to present his one-of-a-kind documentary about the man who produced Bob Marley and invented the remix, seventy-year old reggae classic and mad genius Lee Scratch Perry.

Other films deal with the British utopian Cornelius Cardew and the free spirit of the New Wave, New Yorker Arthur Russell, who died of AIDS in the early 1990's. The section will be topped off by the variety show Music Video - Another Body, enlightened, image hybrid creatures that are something between man and woman, human and demon, singer and rabbit (Antony & The Johnsons, Bjork, Peaches, Bonnie Prince Billy, Animal Collective, and others). These have been specially prepared for the Karlovy Vary festival by the music section's programmer, Pavel Klusák.

The section will open on the very first day of the festival with a celebratory presentation of the opera The First Emperor, a spectacular Chinese-American project with an outstanding performance by Placido Domingo in the title role. The conductor and composer of The First Emperor Tan Dun was awarded an Oscar for the music to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

The home to the section is traditionally the intimate, slightly alternative Husovka Theatre.