Czech Films 2017–2018 2018 / Hmyz / Czech Republic, Slovak Republic 2018
Can the creative process be more important than the work itself? Director Jan Švankmajer follows a troupe of nonprofessional actors rehearsing for a theatre performance in a small town while, at the same time, inviting the viewer onto the stage as well, where surrealism’s legacy is interwoven with the magic of human dreams, and where most of the questions that arise don’t have rational answers.
A troupe of amateur actors rehearsing the second act of the Čapek brothers’ satire The Insect Play at a local pub prompted legendary filmmaker Jan Švankmajer to contemplate man’s never-ending plod through life and to also consider the creative process itself. Right at the outset the movie’s creator tells his audience that he wrote the script without any rational or moral restraint, and in the course of the film he breaks the fourth wall several times in order to show us fragments of the work in progress. “Forget what you learned at drama school; the more embarrassing it is, the better it’ll be,” the actors are instructed by the director, who turned to crowdfunding for what is ostensibly his last film. The result is a unique piece in which the power of imagination pervades surrealism’s legacy.
Jan Škoda
97 min / Color, DCP
Director Jan Švankmajer
/ Screenplay Jan Švankmajer
/ Music Bedřich Smetana, Nikolaj Rimski-Korsakov, Petr Iljič Čajkovskij
/ Editor Jan Daňhel
/ Art Director Jan Švankmajer, Václav Švankmajer, Veronika Hrubá
/ Producer Jaromír Kallista
/ Production ATHANOR
/ Coproduction PubRes s.r.o, Česká televize
/ Cast Jaromír Dulava, Kamila Magálová, Norbert Lichý, Ivana Uhlířová, Jiří Lábus, Jan Budař, Pavel Nový
/ Contact ATHANOR – společnost pro filmovou tvorbu, s.r.o.
/ Distributor CinemArt, a.s.
Jan Švankmajer (b. 1934, Prague). Selected filmography: The Last Trick (1964), Alice (1987), Faust (1994), Conspirators of Pleasure (1996), Little Otik (2000), Lunacy (2005), Surviving Life (2010), Insect (2018)
CinemArt, a.s.
Národní 60/28, 111 21, Praha 1
Czech Republic
Phone: +420 224 949 110
E-mail: [email protected]
ATHANOR – společnost pro filmovou tvorbu, s.r.o.
U 5. baterie 21, 162 00, Praha 6
Czech Republic
Phone: +420 233 322 905
Fax: +420 224 313 383
E-mail: [email protected]
Jaromír Kallista
Producer
Adam Oľha
Director of Photography, Film Director
Jan Růžička
Director of Photography
Jiří Lábus
Actor
Helena Uldrichová
TV Representative
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