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FUNDING Czech Republic

A raft of literary adaptations on the latest slate of Czech projects

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- Philip Roth’s Prague Orgy, Goldilocks and an adaptation of a text from the 12th century are among the projects recently backed by the Czech State Cinematography Fund

A raft of literary adaptations on the latest slate of Czech projects
Miss Hanoi by Zdeněk Viktora

The Czech State Cinematography Fund has recently supported a fresh batch of projects ripe for development. The fund divided the total of 9 million Czech crowns (approximately €333,000) among 14 projects. One clear strand of the supported titles consists of a slew of literary adaptations. Director Alice Nellis is attached to the project The Expulsion of Gerta Schnirch, produced by Negativ and based on the Kateřina Tučková novel of the same name. The story revolves around the guilt of Czechs and Germans and the lives of Czech Germans on the fringes of society.Coincidentally, Tučková’s acclaimed novel The Žítková Goddesses is currently receiving the big-screen treatment as well.

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Negativ is also producing the next project by emerging Czech talent Štepán Altrichter (of Schmitke [+see also:
film review
film profile
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fame; he is also currently readying the dystopian sci-fi flick Runner – see the news), Avenue of the Nation, based on the book by Jaroslav Rudiš and informally referred to as “the lonely man’s fight club”. Prague Movie Company is developing an adaptation of Philip Roth’s book Prague Orgy, set to be directed by Irena Pavlásková. The fund is also supporting the development of the sophomore feature by Polish director Tomasz Mielnik, The Chosen One, produced by Background Films, which supported his first feature-length outing, Journey to Rome [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
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. Mielnik is attempting to shoot a generational film for current thirty-somethings by adapting a text from the 12th century. After last year’s The Noonday Witch [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jiří Sádek
film profile
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, another Karel Jaromír Erben work will be seen on the big screen in the guise of the fairy tale Goldilocks. The adaptation was penned by Lucia Konášová, an experienced author of film and television fairy tales, with veteran filmmaker Václav Vorlíček set to direct.

Also featuring amongst the supported projects is the absurd thriller Old Timers, produced by Jiří Konečný, of Endorfilm, and loosely based on true events. The story follows an octogenarian who returns from exile only to shoot dead a communist prosecutor whose crime from the 1950s went unpunished. Ondřej Hudeček’s ambitious project Bohemian Rhapsody (read the interview), his feature debut and the follow-up to the award-winning short Peacock, received backing for its development, along with Zdeněk Viktora’s crime drama Miss Hanoi [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, set in a small border town with a strong Vietnamese community, where an experienced investigator teams up with an ambitious local Vietnamese policewoman to investigate the death of a young killer. Another Polish director, Tomasz Winski, received backing for his feature debut, Images of Love, a study of a relationship crisis. Lastly, the absurd docu-comedy Never Give Up (previously titled The History of a Film Never Shot) is based on Matej Mináč’s experience of getting permission to shoot an interview with Federico Fellini. Mináč, a Slovak filmmaker based in Prague who won the International Emmy Award for the documentary The Power of Good - Nicholas Winton, wrote and is directing this “metatextual” film about a filmmaker’s struggle to get his work in front of an audience.

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