Polish writer and director Agnieszka Holland discussed his new biographical film FranzAbout the author Franz Kafka during the 59th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) on Monday, saying that the film is trying to find the “essence” of the novelist and explores themes that are still topical, including Kafka’s thoughts on the dangers of totalitarianism.
The filmmaker unveiled the film’s trailer, with the German actor Idan Weiss, before talking about the creative process of the film. The cast also includes Jenovefa Boková, Peter Kurth and Ivan Trojan. Holland wrote the script for co -production between the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany and France, with Marek Epstein (Charlatan), with Mike Downey as an executive producer.
“It’s great to see him on the screen,” said Holland after the start of the trailer.
In the past, she described Kafka as a brother since he read her for the first time at the age of 14. “He stayed with me as an artist, prophet,” she said on Monday. “First, I lived in Communist Poland and Czechoslovakia, which was Kafkaesque was the daily reality of these countries, of these regimes.”
She shared that Kafka’s “triple identity” also spoke to her as a “half -land and half Jewish [person] Live in a strange anti -Semitic communist country. The Holland also pointed out that Kafka was “practically prohibited in Czechoslovakia, with the exception of short periods” under the Communist regime.
After the fall of communism, “in the 21st century, slowly, Kafka became the greatest public tourist attraction and the brand for [various souvenir] Gadgets, frankly, “said the filmmaker. The goal of the film is to get closer to an answer to the question of “what is the essence of Kafka, and how buried this essence was under popular culture”.
The film uses a narrative structure “an associative structure, more than a narrative structure”, she added.
Holland pointed out that the themes of the film, like life with a patriarch, “the family prison”, “the impossibility of communicating” and “his fear of close identity”, which means his reluctance to choose, are always current and topical, just like his “fatalism and his pessimism about humanity” and “his vision of the dangerous of totalitarian society.
Asked about becoming Kafka, Weiss said: “He had been in my body for a long time, and he came out.” He locked himself up in his apartment for two months and only left when he got black to get used to the dark, shared the actor. “Franz for me is a sensitivity,” he also said.
Meanwhile, Downey highlighted Kafka’s “Rock Star status”.
Honoring the famous Czech writer with a retrospective last year, the centenary of his death, Kviff underlined how filmmakers from around the world have long been inspired to adapt his works or make films that are “Kafkaesque”, which means that they are filled with anxiety, alienation and the absurdity that made the most important and distinctive centuries.
Kviff takes place until July 12.
