Upcoming film on Václav Havel receives CZK 14.5 million in state funding

The Czech Film Fund will spend CZK 64 million on supporting eight upcoming feature films. The largest amount, some CZK 14.5 million, will help fund an upcoming biographical film about Václav Havel. According to the fund’s director Helena Bezděk Fraňková, the films cover a wide range of genres including historical pictures, those covering present day issues and a film for children.

Václav Havel |Photo: Czech Television

Overall, some 20 projects competed for financial support from the Czech Film Fund this year. The organisations council announced on Monday that eight of the upcoming films will receive funding.

According to the head of the council that selected the winners, Petr Vítek, the best prepared projects were those that had already been supported in the earlier development stages and those that had applied repeatedly.

The most successful project in terms of financial contribution is the film by screenwriter and director Slávek Horák, which seeks to portray key moments in the life of Václav Havel, including his relationship with first wife Olga and Prague spring leader Alexander Dubček. The film received CZK 14.5 million.

A new feature by Bohdan Sláma which explores events that took place in the Czech-Austrian borderlands during and after World War Two received CZK 11 million in funding. It shares second place with Admin, a film set in the present, which looks into the effect that growing online connections can have on families.

Petr Oukropec’s upcoming children’s film Mazel a tajemství lesa (‘Mazel and the Secret of the Wood’), which portrays a hero going to summer camp just after his parents’ divorce, received CZK 7.5 million in funding.

An upcoming sports drama titled Poslední závod (‘The Last Race’), that documents the tragic event from 1913, when two Czech skiers Bohumil Hanč and Václav Vrbata lost their lives has received CZK 7 million. Unlike many of its fellow recipients, which are being directed by award winning and nominated directors, the project is currently being led by debuting director Tomáš Hodan.

‘Oběť (‘Victim’), a film that looks into the adaptation of foreigners in Czech society, including the issues of xenophobia also received CZK 7 million in funding. The drama picture is being directed by 29-year-old Michal Blaško, whose film Atlantis, 2003 this year’s Czech Lion award for best student film.

Other recipients include the films Hra (‘Game’), by Chilean director Alejandro Fernández Almendras, and Zpráva o záchraně mrtvého (‘Dead man rescue report’) which is led by Václav Kadrnka and portrays a tragic relationship between father and son.