Legendary Czech director and screenwriter Václav Vorlíček, having first greeted the audience on the red carpet in front of the Karlovy Vary Theatre, subsequently received long-lasting standing ovations inside the Theatre. Employing his typical humoristic style, he narrated the history of his famous film Who Wants to Kill Jessie?, a parody of a comic-book series, which was to be screened afterwards. Vorlíček will also attend the KVIFF Closing Ceremony on Saturday, where he will receive the Festival President’s Award for contribution to the Czech film industry.
A trailer composed of Vorlíček’s films, including the classics The Girl on the Broomstick, What would you say to some spinach? or How to wake up a princess (Sleeping Beauty), presented Vorlíček’s work to the audience at the theatre hall. The director, accompanied by host Marek Erben and the festival president Jiří Bartoška, subsequently recounted the making of his film Who Wants to Kill Jessie?, where comic-book superheroes come to life. While talking, he never lost his humour, jokingly interrupting the interpreter and appreciating the “good untranslated Czech ovations”, which he received several times during his speech.
“The idea of releasing characters from a comic-book had been in my mind for a while before I decided to present it to screenwriter Miloš Macourek, known for his sense of humour,” Václav Vorlíček commenced his narration. Following a successful trial screening in the town of Kralupy, even a certain American producer was interested in the film. “He wanted to purchase the rights to the film and transform it to colour as allegedly nobody would come to see a black-and-white film in the US. Otherwise, though, he wanted to keep everything unchanged, even the Czech actors. Therefore, he obtained the necessary financing and came to Prague to make the deal, but come the next morning, it was 21 August 1968 and the project was dead for him,” concluded the director.
