The efficient presentation covered eleven films, including three Slovak coproductions, two films planned as Polish coproductions, two with French coproducers and one with a UK coproducer. The trend toward coproductions continues to grow, with coproductions accounting for half of the 16 films now in post-production.
Director Petr Vaclav, after a break of a dozen years, makes a dynamic return to filmmaking. His upcoming Roma-themed Cesta Ven (The Way Out) will make its premiere at Cannes in May, and he has two more productions in development: Il Boemo, an ambitious international production about brilliant Czech composer (and Mozart’s mentor) Josef Myslivecek, and Never Alone, a drama about two young boys who plan revenge on the father of one of the boys. All three films are produced by Jan Macola of Mimesis Film, who introduced Never Alone to the audience of festival programmers, journalists, and fellow producers. The 20 m CZK film will has lined up two of the country’s best known international stars: Ana Geislerova and Karel Rodin and is now negotiating with potential coproducers.
Jan Hrebejk, whose output continues at a steady pace, will stay in the drama mode for The Teacher, a 1980’s set tale of a teacher who uses and terrorizes the parents of her students. The screenplay is once again by (who else?) Hrebejk’s frequent partner Petr Jarchovsky (their collaboration dates back to Hrebejk’s 1993 breakthrough film Big Beat). The film is produced by Ondrej Zima and Jan Prusinovsky for Offside Men.
Zima was one of several dynamic mid-generation producers pitching their upcoming films at Plzen. Vratislav Slajer of Bionaut fronted both US2, a debut romantic film in the final months of postproduction, and the Radim Spacek film Places coproduced by Zuzana Mistrikova for Slovakia’s PubRes. The Czech-Slovak collaboration was launched at last year’s Finale festival when Mistrikova and Spacek served together on the festival’s jury.
Jiri Konecny, whose unstoppable energy and savvy production choices makes him a regular presence at pitching forums, turned up with Slovak filmmaker Ivan Ostrochovsky, better known for his documentary films to pitch Goat, a hybrid film about a real Slovak boxer (and Olympics contender) that encompasses documentary qualities with a road movie about the down-and-out Romany and his girlfriend. The film is produced by Ostrochovsky and Marek Urban for Slovakia’s Sentimentalfilm and by Konecny for his Czech company endorfilm.
Documentary fans are likely to follow Czech guru filmmakers Filip Remunda and Vit Klusak into the world of doc/fiction hybrid with Pepik the Czech Goes to Poland in a Quest for the Love of God, their first foray into fiction. The filmmaking duo leave production to the Czech company Vernes and Polish coproducer Kosma Films. The paradocumentary stars Miroslav Krobot as one of a pair of Czech skeptic journalists who journey to Poland to make observations about their drunk-on-religion neighbors to the north. Cultures do the clash and burn thing.
European Film Promotion 2014 producer-on-the-move Tomas Hruby from nutprodukce showed up with Wait in Silence, a big budget biographical drama about 1970’s Czech jazz singer Eva Olmerova, now in preproduction with its first draft. Peter Badac of Slovakia’s of BFilm. The two companies coproduced the acclaimed 2013 animated film Pandas.
Czech animation director Jan Balej will adapt his traditional stop-motion puppet animation to digital filmmaking in his adaptation of Han Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, under the Czech title Mala z rybarny. The appearance of two of the film’s star puppets (not needed for filming that day, according to creative producer Vivian Al-Samarraie of Miracle Film) won over the audience who gave the trio of producers the award for the best presentation. Along with the film, producers Nelly D. Jencikova and David Havel are developing a traveling exhibit, a video game and other merchandising that will be used as part of the overall promotional campaign. The film is a Slovak coproduction through Marcela and Marian Ferko – Marlen Media Group and Filmpark, with Patrik Pass doing the editing.
The pitches included a pair of low budget films. Pavel Gobl is in postproduction with Sunrise Supervising, a 3 m CZK film about finding justice in a small town produced by Czech FILM. And recent film school graduate Josef Tuka is in preproduction with the 2 m CZK psychological drama about discovering a parent through an old diary, The Absence of Closeness. The film is produced by his former classmate Asmara Beraki through her new company Tobinko Films. Beraki, an expat American living in Prague, told FNE she is planning to open a U.S. branch of the company with the aim of producing auteur films in the Czech Republic.
