Illustration photo – Poland director Agnieszka Hollandová spoke on August 17, 2020 in Prague at a press conference after the screening of the film The Charlatan.
Prague – The famous director Agnieszka Holland is preparing a full-length feature film about the German writer Franz Kafka from Prague. The film is a broad Czech-German-French-Polish co-production, with the main producer being the domestic company Marlene Film Production, which also participated in Holland's earlier film The Charlatan. As in his case, the film is based on a script by Mark Epstein. Producer Šárka Cimbalová told ČTK.
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According to her, Holland chose the topic of Franz Kafka herself, the director once studied at Prague's FAMU and got to know Prague thanks to Franz Kafka's work. On July 3, 140 years will pass since the birth of the famous writer.
Castings for the film are held in Germany and the Czech Republic, according to the director, Czech and German should be spoken in it, i.e. the way they were spoken in Prague during Kafka's lifetime. In addition, Kafka often went to Germany to visit friends or to sanatoriums. In the Czech Republic, it will be filmed mainly in the center of Prague, where Kafka lived successively in different apartments or worked in an insurance company.
According to the producer, the first part of the film will start shooting this year, the second next year. “We will shoot in the Czech Republic and, thanks to German funds, also in Germany. But the script is still being worked on,” she said. The film, which has the working title Franz, received support of 22 million crowns from the State Film Fund, according to Cimbalova, it also has the support of Czech Television, and its total budget should be around 140 million crowns.
Agniezska Hollandová's film, which he also has the films Mr. Jones, Burning Bush or Through the Bones of the Dead, it will consist of fragments from the life and work of Franz Kafka. The result is to be a mosaic that goes beyond his life to the present, but also presents the dramatic world of Kafka's fantasy.
In addition to the Czech production company, the German company X Films, which made Babylon Berlin, for example, and important French producers Bac The film and the Polish company Metro Film, which is now producing the film Hranice. Holland is finishing that one. The film follows the fates of migrants from Syria and Afghanistan, a Polish border guard and a resident of the Polish-Belarusian border. The production company Marlene Film Production also participates on behalf of the Czech side in the co-production between Poland, France, Belgium and the Czech Republic. “After The Charlatan, we came up with this project (about Kafka) and commissioned Mark Epstein to write it. He worked on it for several years,” said the producer.
