Czech Films 2017–2018 2018 / Lajka / Czech Republic 2017
The real Laika didn’t survive her journey into outer space. In this puppet musical, however, the plucky dog manages to reach a remote planet that man has yet to conquer – for the time being, at any rate. Animator Aurel Klimt looks to the Czech puppet tradition forged by Jiří Trnka to create a tale about the unexpected champions of the Space Race.
Laika was just an ordinary stray dog before she was caught and taken off the street. Yet on November 3, 1957 she became the first living creature to orbit the Earth. Her return home in the Sputnik 2 Soviet spacecraft was never part of the plan; however, in this animated musical Laika survives and passes through a black hole and finds her way to the planet Qem. There, in the company of various bizarre life forms, she gets her first taste of how things are when man isn’t the lord of creation. Drawing on his distinctive artistic sensibility, animator Aurel Klimt looks to the Czech puppet tradition forged by Jiří Trnka and Břetislav Pojar. His Laika isn’t aimed just at youngsters, it also takes a potshot at certain phenomena associated with the Cold War and the Space Race.
Jan Škoda
88 min / Color, DCP
Director Aurel Klimt
/ Screenplay Aurel Klimt
/ Dir. of Photography Radek Loukota
/ Music Marek Doubrava, Josef Čermák
/ Editor Aurel Klimt
/ Art Director Martin Velíšek, František Lipták, Aurel Klimt
/ Producer Aurel Klimt
/ Production Studio ZVON
/ Coproduction Universal Production Partners, Aurel Klimt, Bystrouška, Česká televize
/ Cast Helena Dvořáková, Jan Vondráček, Petr Čtvrtníček, Karel Zima, Miroslav Táborský
/ Contact Studio ZVON
/ Distributor A-Company Czech s.r.o.
www: www.lajka.eu
Aurel Klimt (b. 1972, Žilina, Czechoslovakia). Filmography: Mashkin Killed Koshkin (1995), Bloody Hugo – An Eastern (1997), The Enchanted Bell (1998), The Fall (1999), Jan Werich’s Fimfárum (2002), Glassworks (2005), Fimfárum 2 (2006)
A-Company Czech s.r.o.
Štefánikova 18/25, 150 00, Praha 5
Czech Republic
Phone: +420 257 315 540
Studio ZVON
Žižkovo náměstí 53, 285 41, Malešov
Czech Republic
Phone: +420 775 920 320
E-mail: [email protected]
Aurel Klimt
Film Director, Producer
Eva Klimt
Film Crew
Olívie Dolanská
Animator
Jaroslav Sedláček
Producer
Ladislav Špaček
Film Crew
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