14/10/2022 - The third feature-length directorial effort by the rising Czech filmmaker is in the editing room and is being readied for next summer

Actress Mia Banko on the set of Tiny Lights (© Bontonfilm)

Rising Czech writer-director Beata Parkanová is getting busier and busier. Having won the Best Director Award at this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival for her sophomore feature, The Word [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Beata Parkanová
film profile] (see the news), she has just been shooting her third film. Tiny Lights will conclude her trilogy of intimate stories so far consisting of Moments [+see also:
trailer
interview: Beata Parkanová
interview: Beata Parkanová
film profile] and The Word.

Martin Finger, who won the Best Actor Award at KVIFF for the leading role in The Word, is also joining Parkanová on her third feature-length directorial effort. Once again, the director also wrote the script, which follows a six-year-old girl over the course of a single day. Against the backdrop of a summer in the early 1990s in a small town, the little protagonist, Amálka, and her innocence will be confronted by the marital crisis between her parents.

“The film captures a moment of transformation in the life of the protagonist, set against the backdrop of a heated marital crisis and complicated family relationships. We find ourselves on a day when circumstances shatter Amálka's world and bring to it a new, fully lived experience of darkness and personal crisis. This experience then leads Amálka to a different perception of herself and her world,” explains the director. Similarly to the previous films in the trilogy, Tiny Lights is supposed to be an intimate drama. "Tiny Lights will be a tender story about fragile and extremely important things that happen in one family and fully affect the little girl. For me, personally, this is the first big film work with a child in the main role, but I am very happy about it all," adds the director.

In addition to Finger, who portrays the grandfather, and Mia Bankó in the leading role, the Czech and Slovak cast includes Elizaveta Maximová (Borders of Love [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tomasz Wiński
film profile]), Veronika Žilková (Angel of the Lord 2 [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), and Parkanová regular Marek Geišberg (Nightsiren [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tereza Nvotová
film profile]) in the role of the father. The Word DoP Tomáš Juríček lensed Tiny Lights, principal photography for which unfolded in the Czech Republic and Slovakia and wrapped in the summer. The film is currently in the editing room, where Alois Fišárek, the editor of both of Parkanová’s previous films, is working on the cut. The world premiere is expected in the summer of 2023.

Parkanová is already preparing follow-up works for after her trilogy. In addition to her debut directorial gig for the theatre, she is developing two film projects: the psychological portmanteau film Bears and Scream Is a Beautiful Song, which was inspired by her own experiences and follows two friends on a hike across Bulgarian mountains and their contemplation of a possible relationship. Furthermore, the filmmaker is working on two more scripts: the historical drama Black Blood, about a mass execution of Romas in the wake of a made-up accusation of cannibalism in the 18^th century, and something lighter, the optimistic romcom Hen, which follows a florist with a talking hen. Apparently, the movie should bring to mind Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s comedy Amélie [+see also:
trailer
film profile].

Tiny Lights is being produced by Czech outfit LOVE.FRAME, and co-produced by Slovak production company AZYL Productions, Bontonfilm Studios and Radio and Television Slovakia. The Czech Film Fund, the Slovak Audiovisual Fund and the South Moravian Film Fund supported the project. Bontonfilm will handle the domestic theatrical release.