The state of the Czech film industry: rolling along but for how long?
In this week's Talking Point Jan Velinger looks at the Czech film industry, which has seen the rise of talented new directors over the last few years. Every year an average of fifteen to twenty films get produced, although with a lack of state support, financing is far from easy. Most producers here say the fact that the film industry is successful at all, borders on the miraculous. How do Czech films get made against the odds? Read on and find out: you'll also learn about the Czechs' choice for the Oscars this year - a small but beautiful picture called Wild Bees.
Just an example of how far Czech filmmakers have made it - and one could argue Milos Forman, in his playful approach to character, never lost the original spontaneity that was characteristic to his early Czech films as well as of the New Wave itself. The big question, years later as the Czech Republic emerged from the collapse of communism, was whether a new generation of young directors would emerge to take earlier directors' places - to create a new New Wave of their own...
Well, it hasn't quite turned out that way the Next Wave is a moniker new directors reject: still, many new talented directors have emerged: over the last six years especially new films have confirmed strong individual styles; some are artistically successfully, some are commercially so, some are both.
By way of example: in 1996 Jan Sverak won the Best Foreign Film Oscar for Kolya, the story of a little Russian boy cared for by a single Czech father in communist Czechoslovakia. Then, in 2000, Jan Hrebejk's Divided We Fall, set during World War II, snagged an Oscar nomination but ultimately lost to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. And though the Academy Awards are only one form of measure, the films' nominations still seemed to confirm the continuing overall quality and strength of the film business here. President of the Czech Film and Television Academy Petr Vachler:
"There is great enthusiasm here that drives Czech filmmakers and independent producers thanks to whom an average of fifteen films get produced every year. Czech filmmakers are skilled and many projects have been recognised and received prizes, both at home, but especially abroad."
Here then is the dilemma: if there is no shortage of talented filmmakers in the Czech Republic there is a shortage of funds, with some producers calling the search for financing a wild adventure at best; insiders in the business will tell you with caustic irony they aren't sure how so many films still get produced every year. To paraphrase the theatre director in Shakespeare in Love, nobody really knows how things turn out well in the end, they just do. The question is how long can that continue. When one considers the size of the local market a country of just 10 million translates into a theatre-going market usually numbered only in hundreds of thousands, very rarely in the millions, one understands the low ceiling on investments and returns that doesn't make it easy to get major projects off the ground. Jan Bradac, the general director of Falcon film - says that, aside from applying for international grants, there are only a few local routes that producers can take:
"You have only two main sources where you find some certain amount of money you need for production - this is Czech television and the Fund for the Support of Czech Cinematography, and in any other ways you can not find any general public sources where you can make the money. You have another possibility, making hundreds and hundreds of phone calls to the private sector, to private companies, to ask them if they can give you the money or not. From this point of view I evaluate the appearance of a new picture on the Czech market as a small miracle."
One solution for such a dilemma would be a strong state presence for support of Czech film, but that doesn't exist. President of the Czech Film and Television Academy Petr Vachler:
"States like the Czech Republic should have laws to support and protect local culture and identity. Our country lacks that kind of legislation and its practically impossible to support Czech film in a quality way."
And that situation has both producers and directors angry: good films still get made, but it is always a risk, there is no state support. There is not even much of a political will to recognise film as an essential corner-stone of Czech cultural life. Filmmaker Bohdan Slama:
"In our country we don't have the support from the government, real support for cinematography. That's the situation in which we are, so we have to somehow tell those guys that film is also part of life, and it's taking care of spirit, you know?"
The situation is such that if it wasn't for Czech TV acting as a major co-producer, the film business here may have gone belly up long ago; at the same time the public broadcaster Czech TV is not required by law to support the Czech film industry. Meanwhile, the only minuscule public source available the Fund for the Support of Cinematography can only offer so little it would almost be better off if it were a charity, says Fund representative Josef Eismann.
Currently the fund receives money by law from two direct sources - on the one hand a single Czech crown is taken from every movie theatre ticket sold: that's a little over three American cents. Second, profits made from selling the screening rights of some 950 Czech films made between 1965 - 1990, every time they appear on TV. That amounts to a yearly budget of some 90 million crowns, not very much when one considers that a single Czech film costs an average of 20 million. A new law governing the Fund is being prepared which could improve the situation considerably were it to pass in parliament. Fund representative Josef Eismann:
"At the moment a new law governing the Fund for the Support of Cinematography is being by prepared by the Culture Ministry and there are indications that the proposal should include raising the contribution from the cost of cinema tickets, as well as including a mandatory contribution from TV that would the Fund's account. We could then operate with 3 or 4 times as much as we do now. As much as 400 million crowns. Under such circumstances state support wouldn't be necessary. "
Josef Eismann says he expects the bill shall be debated in parliament during 2003 -but no one knows what final form it will take. In the meantime, Czech filmmakers won't hold their breath - they're going to continue working as they always have, within their means, within limits, and if they're lucky and talented enough, still produce good results. A case in point is Bohdan Slama's Wild Bees, this year's Czech Film and Television Academy's choice to grab an Oscar nomination; the film has already won 1st prize in Rotterdam and received the Skyy Prize at the San Francisco International Festival. But it was far from easy to make:
If making films here is difficult there is one advantage: great artistic freedom. And in Wild Bees Bohdan Slama has made a beautiful picture on a very small budget that follows in the tradition from the 1960s of daring independent Czech films that were unabashed about their topics and unafraid to look with a peering eye at the world, at the same time telling stories that were funny, simple, moving on a human scale, bringing us closer to the ordinary lives of everyday characters than ever before.
Set in a small north Moravian town shows us the daily lives of young people with almost documentary-like honesty, slowly uncovering their secret loves and dreams, and the film has many poetic moments were it hits just the right balance of bittersweet tenderness and the epiphany of small but absolutely vital personal discover.
Overall, Wild Bees is a small gem, and if you get a chance to see it, do so. It is even more remarkable when one considers the cost and toil of finding finances on the Czech scene to get good projects made.
