CHARLATAN
O.V. in Czech subtitled in Spanish
The legendary Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland (In Darkness, Europa Europa) takes us closer to a fascinating and rarely seen figure in her latest film, which premiered at the Berlinale: the Czech healer Jan Mikolášek, whose life was screaming for a biopic. Mikoláše became a celebrity in the 1930s among the rich and poor, serving the Germans during the Nazi occupation and also the communist officers after the war. In this film, not only does Mikoláše's ambivalence come into play, who might perfectly be an impostor or touched by grace, but also his love story with his assistant František, a taboo in the society in which they lived.
Direction: Agnieszka Holland
Script: Marek Epstein
Cinematography: Martin Štrba
Editing: Pavel Hrdlička
Music: Antoni Komasa-Łazarkiewicz
Sound: Radim Hladík Jr.
Cast: Ivan Trojan, Josef Trojan, Juraj Loj, Jaroslava Pokorná
Production: Šárka Cimbalová, Kevan Van Thompson
Production Company: Marlene Film Production
Agnieszka Holland
Poland, 1948. Film and television director and scriptwriter. Well known for her highly politicized contributions to the new wave of Polish cinema, Agnieszka Holland is considered one of the most prominent Polish filmmakers of all time. Holland graduated from the Prague Film and Television Academy (FAMU) in 1971 and began her career as an assistant director to such figures as Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda. Shortly before 1981 she emigrated to France. Perhaps her most distinctive film is Europa Europa (1991), based on the biography of Solomon Perel, a Jewish teenager who fled from Germany to Poland after the Night of Broken Glass in 1938. She is also the author of In Darkness, nominated for an Oscar in 2011. She was awarded the Alfred Bauer Prize (Silver Bear) in 2017 for her film Spoor at the Berlinale, a festival that also saw the premiere of her latest film, Charlatan.
