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Green Border.Agnieszka Holland begs to differ with Claude Lanzmann. The director of Shoah (1985) had attacked the idea of depicting the Holocaust in a fiction film, claiming that its unfathomable horrors would inevitably be trivialized. In a 2013 National Gallery of Art lecture, “Viewing History through the Filmmaker’s Lens,” Holland made two counter-arguments: that feature films are a tool to educate as many people as possible about the Holocaust, and that “taking on issues that are impossible to explain or grasp rationally is one of the most important challenges of an artist.” Holland had made a number of provocative Holocaust dramas, including Angry Harvest (1985), Europa Europa (1990), and In Darkness (2011), all of which involve the plight of Jews who have improbably escaped capture and death. With these films, Holland looked back at events from decades in the past. In her latest film, she is dramatizing history while it is unfolding.Urgent without sacrificing artistry,...

This year’s edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is set to present a retrospective on Franz Kafka and his influence on cinema, dubbed The Wish To Be A Red Indian: Kafka and Cinema. It will examine how the influential Czech writer has impacted filmmakers from Orson Welles, Martin Scorsese, Ousmane Sembene, Jan Nemec and Steven Soderbergh.

This June will mark the centenary of the final moments of Kafka, who passed away at a sanatorium in the Austrian town of Kierling. Kviff, which kicks off on June 28, will launch this strand in honor of the writer featuring films such as Soderberg’s noir mystery Kafka, Welles’ The Trial, Scorsese’s After Hours as well as Roman Polanski’s The Tenant among others.

The festival will also be honoring casting director Francine Maisler, who has worked with directors such as Denis Villeneuve, Terrence Malick and Alejandro González Iñárritu and whose credits include The Revenant,...

Agnieszka Holland’s “Green Border” won the audience award at the 53rd edition of International Film Festival Rotterdam in a strong year for the event, which recorded 253,500 visits across its programs.

Holland’s Venice Jury Prize-winner derives its name from the swampy forests found at the border between Poland and Belarus, a perilous place where hundreds of migrants — mostly from the Middle East and Africa — try to make their way into the European Union. “Green Border” chronicles the intertwined lives of people caught in the geopolitical webs of the crossing and joins several of Holland’s films to have played at IFFR, including “Europa Europa” and “Burning Bush.”

This year’s edition of the festival, which took place between Jan. 25 – Feb. 4, featured 424 films, 183 of which were world premieres, plus accompanying programs including Art Directions and IFFR Talks. As part of the Talks program, the festival welcomed names such as Sandra Hüller,...

Tom Smothers, who with his younger brother Dick changed the face of comedy with their musical humor and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, died Tuesday in Santa Rosa, California, following a cancer battle. The news was announced by the National Comedy Center, on behalf of Smothers’ family. He was 86.

Tom and Dick Smothers started out as folk musicians in the early ’60s, and soon discovered that, while they were not good enough to be professional musicians, the act worked if they mixed in comedy.

Dick Smothers said in a statement, “Tom was not only the loving older brother that everyone would want in their life, he was a one-of-a-kind creative partner. I am forever grateful to have spent a lifetime together with him, on and off stage, for over 60 years. Our relationship was like a good marriage – the longer we were together, the more we loved and respected one another.

Exclusive: UK-based production house Envision Entertainment has significantly expanded its ranks by appointing two key executives.

Former HBO Europe CEO Linda Jensen, who pioneered the U.S. company’s growth into local-language programming, and experienced UK producer David Barron, whose credits include the Harry Potter franchise, have both joined the company to focus on distinct areas.

At Envision, Jensen will seek out and acquire local IP with international potential. She will also spearhead the launch of an investment arm at the company, which will also look to acquire stakes in synergistic media companies across the screen industry in complimentary fields such as publishing, gaming, and animation.

The team told Deadline they would initially focus on territories in Cee and East Asia (where Nakan has specialist knowledge), with plans to quickly expand into high-growth territories such as India, the Middle East, South East Asia, and Africa.

Envision founder Michael Nakan will...

Beta Film CEO Jan Mojto was in his twenties when he left his native Slovakia in the 1970s, embarking on a career as a journalist before joining the German media giant Kirch Group and finally taking the reins of the Munich-based independent in 2004. Nearly half a century later, the 73-year-old admits a part of him has never left. “Obviously, there is a piece of [my] heart there,” he tells Variety.

It would be a stretch, however, to write off Beta Film’s growing investment in Central and Eastern Europe as nostalgia on the part of its venerable head. For a company that partners with and holds stakes in production companies across Europe, such moves are a natural extension of a strategy that has helped it evolve into one of the continent’s more formidable production and distribution powerhouses, behind the strength of titles like “Gomorrah” and “Babylon Berlin.”

“The market [in Central and Eastern Europe] is developing very rapidly,...

“Charlatan” seems too harshly definitive a term to apply to the fascinating protagonist of the new film with the self-same title, given that the Middle European physician titularly accused of medical deception successfully plied a busy career treating eager patients across more than three decades under three vastly different political regimes. The venerable veteran director Agnieszka Holland has made a tasty, if not fully-baked, biographical drama about an obstinate man whose life was as difficult as he was. Czech Republic’s entry in this year’s Best International Feature Oscar sweepstakes world premiered at Berlin in 2020 and is being handled domestically by Strand Releasing.

A cranky, egotistical, imperious fellow, Jan Mikolasek, was a man who, as presented here, would never allow a cloud of self-doubt to hover over his head, much less puncture his abundant ego. Opening like Citizen Kane, with an old man’s dying breath (albeit without uttering...

The dizzying mosaic of periods and plot twists in Agnieszka Holland’s “Charlatan,” submitted by the Czech Republic to the Oscars race this year, offered Slovak Dp Martin Strba some daunting challenges. The story of an unorthodox master of folk medicine, who runs afoul of both Nazis and the Soviet-backed regime, called for visual styles as thoughtfully concocted as the potions of the protagonist, Jan Mikolasek. Strba spoke to Variety about the film, which screens in the main competition section of the EnergaCamerimage Film Festival.

What was it about the “Charlatan” script that appealed to you and how did you visualize it in your mind as you read it?

I knew right away that it would be necessary to react visually to the nonlinear way it’s told. It was a big challenge because Agnieszka did not want the time planes to be separated too obviously. In the end, we agreed that the [Soviet] Normalization period,...

Charlatan

Polish director Agnieszka Holland remains as busy as ever, leaving behind the horrors of the Holodomor in her 2019 biopic Mr. Jones for a different kind of period piece altogether with Charlatan. Produced by Sarka Cimbalova and Kevan Van Thompson, Holland reunites with her Burning Bush (read review) actor Ivan Trojan, as well as her composer Antoni Komasa-Lazarkiewicz. Notably, the project is lensed by Martin Strba (a 14 time Czech Lion nominee), with costume design by his wife Katarina Strbova Bielikova. Having directed numerous features and television shows in her forty plus years as director, Holland is perhaps most notable for her 1990 work Europa Europa (which scored an Oscar nod for Best Writing), while her 2011 title In Darkness was nominated for Best Foreign Language feature.…...

Thirty years after the Velvet Revolution that brought down the communist regime in the former Czechoslovakia, the six-part HBO Europe series “The Sleepers” captures that tumultuous time with a spy drama set behind the Iron Curtain.

On the eve of its world premiere at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, director Ivan Zacharias (“Wasteland”) and actor David Nykl (“Stargate”) joined Variety film critic Peter Debruge to discuss the series at the Variety Critics Corner, presented by HBO Europe.

Zacharias recalled the turbulent events of a year that swept away the decades-long reign of one-party rule in Czechoslovakia. “That was a big year. It was a huge change, when the communist system finally broke down,” he said.

It’s an era that’s rarely been documented on screen, noted Debruge, with “The Sleepers” offering a portrait of Czech society at a time when political intrigue meant nothing was entirely what it seemed.

After 38 days of filming, the final clapperboard has been snapped shut on “Charlatan,” Oscar-nominated Polish director Agnieszka Holland’s latest film, and it’s a wrap. The film will premiere on Feb. 20, 2020, which offers the possibility of a launch at the Berlin Film Festival (Feb. 20-March 1).

“Charlatan” was shot in several locations in the Czech Rep. in April and June. Holland, producer Sarka Cimbalova of Czech Rep.’s Marlene Film Production and the Czech screenwriter, Marek Epstein, will attend the Karlovy Vary Film Festival Wednesday to present the project live on Czech Television, which backed the movie.

The film is inspired by the true story of healer Jan Mikolasek, who dedicated himself to caring for the sick, in spite of the huge obstacles he faced in his private and public life.

“From the moment I read the script I thought the story was quite strong, full of a certain mystery,...

Agnieszka Holland, at the Berlinale with competition entry “Mr. Jones,” shifted her focus to TV on Wednesday to clue potential partners into the vision for her epic eight-part drama series-in-the-making, “Napoleon.”

Holland is one of Europe’s top filmmakers and also has high-end TV credits including HBO Europe’s “Burning Bush” as well as HBO’s U.S. series “The Wire” and “Treme.” Little was known about the creative plans for “Napoleon” until Holland took the stage at Berlin’s Zoo Palast, to generous applause from the packed industry crowd at the Berlinale Co Pro Series 2019.

“There have been several attempts to make a project about Napoleon, starting with the Stanley Kubrick movie, and then attempts to make a miniseries, but it never happened, so I think it’s about time,” she said.

The team realized they needed a full-length series, rather than a miniseries, to tell the story, Holland said.

Frictionless international film and series production is at the top of agendas in Central and Eastern Europe these days, with increasingly competitive territories adopting policy tweaks and launching new film promotion bodies.

The freshly minted Slovak Film Commission is looking to catch up quick to its longstanding Czech counterpart, the Czech Film Commission, with a high profile at major fests, partnerships with Western European counterparts and streamlined services for foreign producers now on the table, says Zuzana Bielikova, who heads the org.

“We would like to make obtaining shooting permits in locations easier and eventually handle the formalities,” says Bielikova, who has spent years at one of Prague’s topline production companies, Negativ. In that capacity she has been part of the team behind critical successes such as “Alois Nebel” and the recent work of Czech docu legend Helena Trestikova.

Now, says Bielikova, helping her native country to win more...

“Arrow” actor David Nykl will star in “The Sleepers,” HBO Europe’s Czech spy drama, which has just gone into production. Nykl, who plays Anatoly Knyazev in The CW superhero series, will be joined by Hattie Morahan (“Beauty and the Beast”) in the HBO show.

Tatiana Pauhofová, who was in HBO Europe’s Agnieszka Holland series “Burning Bush,” was already announced as a cast member of “The Sleepers,” which was previously known as “Oblivious.”

Shooting is underway in Prague, and additional filming will take place in London. The series is ostensibly set in late-1980s Prague against a backdrop of political unrest. Marie (Pauhofova) and her dissident husband, Viktor, fled Communist Czechoslovakia, but with change in the air, they return home. Viktor then disappears. Czech-Canadian actor Nykl plays a bureaucrat.

“The Sleepers” will bow on HBO Europe in late 2019. Ondrej Gabriel wrote the series. Ivan Zacharias, who directed HBO Europe’s “Wasteland,...

HBO has ordered Czech spy drama Oblivious from the director of Wasteland as it steps up its original commissions in Europe.

The six-part drama is the latest original from the region, which has delivered series such as Agnieszka Holland’s Burning Bush and Polish thriller The Pack. It comes after HBO Europe partnered with the team behind acclaimed Scandi drama Lilyhammer last week on sci-fi comedy Beforeigners.

Oblivious is set in the Czech Republic in the 1980s. It was written by newcomer Ondřej Gabriel, who studied political science at Prague’s Charles University before becoming a playwright, and directed by Ivan Zacharias, the Czech filmmaker behind HBO Europe’s Wasteland.

The drama was unveiled during a panel at the Karlovy Vary film festival in the Czech Republic, which looked at HBO Europe’s role in discovering and developing writers in Central Europe. It featured screenwriters including Bogdan Mirica, creator of Romanian drama Shadows,...

Adding to its line-up of original productions from Central and Eastern Europe, HBO Europe announced Sunday at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival that it has greenlit an original Czech series, “Oblivious.”

The espionage drama set in Czechoslovakia during the 1980s will be helmed by Ivan Zacharias, whose HBO Europe series “Wasteland” is now set for streaming distribution in the U.S.

The six-part spy story is being written by television screenwriter Ondrej Gabriel, which the company has said illustrates its commitment to developing new talent from the region.

Zacharias created a bleak, menacing world in his past series for HBO Europe, “Wasteland,” which followed the trail of a child-napping in the Czech Republic’s northern coal region amid power intrigues and corporate secrets.

That series, which released two seasons, premiered at Karlovy Vary in 2016 amid warm audience and critical responses.

The “Oblivious” announcement capped a panel at the festival that...

F rom the works of masters like Costa-Gavras and Asghar Farhadi to newcomers like Nagraj Manjule and Kim Mordaunt, the Mumbai Film Festival 2013 offers above 200 films to choose from for an entire week!

Anu Rangachar, the Program Director of Mumbai Film Festival, lists her 20 favourite films in the lineup.

1. The Act of Killing

Dir.: Joshua Oppenheimer (2012 / Col. / 115′)

Section: The Real Reel

The film won the Panorama Audience Award and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Berlin International Film Festival 2013 and the Cph:dox Award at the Cph:dox Film Festival 2012. It has bagged several other awards in film festivals at Istanbul, Prague, Geneva, Warsaw, Barcelona, Zagreb, Mexico, etc.

An Indonesian documentary, The Act of Killing challenges the total impunity on genocide by the death squad leaders. In 1965, Anwar Congo and his friends were promoted to the ranks of Death Squad Leaders to help the army obliterate more than one million alleged communists,...