The Painted Bird is an adaptation of Jerzy Kosiński’s bestseller and stars the 9-year-old Czech actor Petr Kotlár alongside Stellan Skarsgård, Udo Kier and Harvey Keitel. The cast includes Lech Dyblik, Jitka Čvančarová, Julian Sand, Aleksey Kravchenko and Barry Pepper.
Trying to protect their child during WWII, a Jewish couple send their son to a relative in the countryside somewhere in Eastern Europe. But the boy’s aunt dies unexpectedly and he is forced to set out alone on a journey through the hostile world governed by local rules, prejudices and superstitions. When the war ends, his fight for physical survival is replaced by a different kind of a fight.
The film is the first majority Czech coproduction selected for the main competition of the Venice Film Festival (2019) in 25 years and it was also selected for the Special Presentations section of the 44th Toronto IFF (5-15 September 2019).
The Painted Bird was produced by Silver Screen in coproduction with the Czech Television, Directory Films, PubRes and RTVS.
It was supported by the Czech State Cinematography Fund, Creative Europe – MEDIA, the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the Slovak Audiovisual Fund and the Ukrainian State Film Agency.
Vaclav Marhoul participated in the ScripTeast programme with The Painted Bird, where the project received a Special Mention.
Celluloid Dreams is handling the sales.
Click HERE for the press release.
Click HERE to read FNE review.
