Five Czech Lions for the „Charlatan”
Co-financed by the Polish Film Institute, „Charlatan” has been chosen by the jury of the Czech Film and Television Academy as the Best Feature Film of 2020. Its director, Agnieszka Holland also won the Czech Lion award for Best Director and Ivan Trojan who was named Best Actor.
„Charlatan” received Czech Lion also for the best cinematography and sound. Film was nominated in 15 categories: actor roles, screenplay, editing, stage design, costume design, makeup and music composed by Antoni Komasa-Łazarkiewicz. Film by Agnieszka Holland is a Czech candidate for the Oscar and one of the 15 films on the shortlist in the International Feature Film category.
The world premiere of the „Charlatan” took place at Berlinale 2020. This Czech-Polish-Irish-Slovak co-production was also nominated for European Film Awards for the Best Director.
Film plot
This is a drama based on facts which is about the famous Czech healer, Jan Mikolášek. He was a self-taught medical practitioner who, thanks to his horticultural profession, perfectly got to know the world of plants and their healing properties. He was famous all over the Czech Republic for his skills, and among his patients were President of pre-war Czechoslovakia Tomas Masaryk, as well as the communist prime minister and president of the country Antonín Zápotocký, after the death of whom the authorities decided to imprison the healer.
Recalling the legendary figure of the Czech herbalist, the director brings to light his secrets, emotions and desires, the only remedy for which is fanatical devotion to work. „Charlatan” shows that talent can be a curse, and power is always associated with pride. The almost alchemical knowledge of the properties of herbs that Jan Mikolášek possessed, and his amazing gift of penetrating the human interior, attract thousands of needy people to his clinic. But this gift also has its dark side.
Filmmakers
The world premiere of „Charlatan” took place at the last year’s International Film Festival in Berlin. Recently, it was nominated for the European Film Awards for the Best Director, and received as many as 14 nominations for the Czech Academy of Film and Television Awards. The film was starred by: Ivan Trojan, Juraj Loj and Josef Trojan.
The author of the script is Marek Epstein, Martin Štrba was responsible for the cinematography, Milan Býček for the stage design, Katarina Štrbová-Bieliková for the costumes, Antoni Komasa-Łazarkiewicz for the music, Radim Hladik jr for the sound, Pavel Hrdlička for the editing, and René Stejskal and Gabriela Poláková for the make-up . The production was managed by Kinga Tasarek, the producers were Sarka Cimbalova and Kevan Van Thompson, and the co-producers were Klaudia Śmieja-Rostworowska, Wojciech Gostomczyk and Adam Gudell. The film was produced by Marlene Film Production (Czech Republic) in co-production with Film and Music Entertainment Ireland (Ireland) and on the Polish side: Madants, Studio Metrage and Moderator Inwestycje, as well as Furia Film (Slovakia).