PRAGUE: Internationally acclaimed Czech surrealist and animator Jan Švankmajer has launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign for his new feature length project Insects. The campaign was launched via his production company Athanor last week, seeking the final 25 percent of the film’s budget from his fans worldwide.
PRAGUE: Following their successful coproduction projects – the TV series Jan Hus by Jiří Svoboda and Life According to Vaclav Havel by Andrea Sedláčková – Czech TV and the French-German cultural channel ARTE will begin production on My Uncle Archimedes.
PRAGUE: Prague sees the return of a controversial statue to a prominent spot in the city thanks to a new film from Czech TV. Shooting started on the TV film Monster directed by the renowned TV director Viktor Polesný. The film is based on a story by Rudla Cainer titled Granite Stalin.
PRAGUE: The multi-award-winning Czech director Bohdan Sláma is prepping a new feature film with the working title Scars / Jízvy produced by Fog´n ´Desire and coproduced by Slovakia‘s Sokol Kollár.
PRAGUE: The Prague-based award-winning young Slovenian director Olmo Omerzu is developing his third film, Jackdaws on the Road, a Czech/Slovenian/Slovak coproduction. Omerzu is working once again with producer Jiří Konečný of endorfilm.
PRAGUE: Acclaimed Czech New Wave filmmaker Jan Němec, the writer and director of the upcoming film The Wolf from the Royal Vineyard Street, died in March this year shortly before finishing his film. Now, the film, which had been shot and almost completely edited, has been turned over to his team, consisting mainly of former students from Prague’s FAMU film school, to take on the daunting task of finishing the film without him.
PRAGUE: Jan Hřebejk, one of the most successful and active contemporary Czech filmmakers, has completed work on his Slovak/Czech coproduction The Teacher / Učitelka and is preparing a trilogy under the working title Garden Store.
PRAGUE: Czech Television is currently preparing a total of 406 projects greenlit last year. They include eight new drama series, 200 documentary films and programmes, 28 children’s programmes and 86 music, theatre and ballet programmes.
PRAGUE: The State Cinematography Fund will regularly receive money from the state budget. The sum of approximately 180 to 200 m CZK will be granted to the Fund on annual basis as stated in the amendment to the audiovisual law approved by the House of Representatives this week.
PLZEN: Radek Beran’s animated film The Little Man / Malý Pán, a Czech/Slovak coproduction, will screen at the 29th Finale Plzen (15-21 April 2016).
