Inaugurated in 2021, the Annecy Residency program takes three selected projects on a six-month journey, beginning with a three-month script workshop before moving to Annecy’s Papeteries Image Factory for a similar bout of tailored mentorships and visual experimentation. At the end, the filmmakers launch their development titles at the MIFA market.
When directors Pierre Le Couviour and Amine El Ouarti brought their residency-honed title “Le Cœur à danser” to last year’s MIFA, they very quickly found an eager partner in French studio Vivement Lundi, teaming with the Rennes-based production house to develop the project even further. That extra work paid off, and when the World War I-set folktale returned to pitch at this year’s MIFA, the project broke out as a serious buzz title, inspiring immediate and ardent distributor attention before claiming two of the three top prizes for best feature pitch.
That’s just a single 2021 residency project.
When directors Pierre Le Couviour and Amine El Ouarti brought their residency-honed title “Le Cœur à danser” to last year’s MIFA, they very quickly found an eager partner in French studio Vivement Lundi, teaming with the Rennes-based production house to develop the project even further. That extra work paid off, and when the World War I-set folktale returned to pitch at this year’s MIFA, the project broke out as a serious buzz title, inspiring immediate and ardent distributor attention before claiming two of the three top prizes for best feature pitch.
That’s just a single 2021 residency project.
- 6/16/2022
- by Ben Croll
- Variety Film + TV
Jiri Menzel, director of the Oscar-winning film “Closely Watched Trains,” died this weekend at the age of 82, according to a Facebook post by his wife.
“Dearest Jirka, I thank you for each and single day I could spend with you. Each was extraordinary. I am also grateful to you for the last three years, as hard as they were,” his wife wrote in her post.
Born in Prague in 1938, Menzel became one of the most famous members of the Czech New Wave of cinema in the 1960s, earning critical acclaim in the West while struggling to get his films released in his home country due to Communist censors. Many of his films were based on the novels of Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal, including “Closely Watched Trains,” a coming-of-age story about a teen who gets a job at a train station in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. Menzel’s adaptation won the Oscar for...
“Dearest Jirka, I thank you for each and single day I could spend with you. Each was extraordinary. I am also grateful to you for the last three years, as hard as they were,” his wife wrote in her post.
Born in Prague in 1938, Menzel became one of the most famous members of the Czech New Wave of cinema in the 1960s, earning critical acclaim in the West while struggling to get his films released in his home country due to Communist censors. Many of his films were based on the novels of Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal, including “Closely Watched Trains,” a coming-of-age story about a teen who gets a job at a train station in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. Menzel’s adaptation won the Oscar for...
- 9/6/2020
- by Jeremy Fuster
- The Wrap
Oscar-winning Czech director, writer and actor Jiri Menzel died Saturday following a long illness.
Menzel’s death was confirmed by his wife, Olga, who posted the news on Instagram and Facebook late Sunday. Menzel was 82.
Winner of the Academy Award for best foreign-language film for the 1966 bittersweet Nazi occupation story “Closely Watched Trains,” Menzel was a leading figure of the Czech New Wave along with boundary-breaking directors such as Milos Forman and Vera Chytilova
Also nominated for a foreign-language Oscar in 1986 for the dark comedy “My Sweet Little Village,” Menzel was celebrated for his ironic takes on life, satires of authority figures and classic Czech character studies.
A longtime collaborator with Czech novelist Bohumil Hrabal, who wrote the book on which “Closely Watched Trains” was based, Menzel also adapted his books “Cutting it Short” and “Larks on a String.” The latter film, a 1969 send-up of young people forcibly recruited to a labor camp,...
Menzel’s death was confirmed by his wife, Olga, who posted the news on Instagram and Facebook late Sunday. Menzel was 82.
Winner of the Academy Award for best foreign-language film for the 1966 bittersweet Nazi occupation story “Closely Watched Trains,” Menzel was a leading figure of the Czech New Wave along with boundary-breaking directors such as Milos Forman and Vera Chytilova
Also nominated for a foreign-language Oscar in 1986 for the dark comedy “My Sweet Little Village,” Menzel was celebrated for his ironic takes on life, satires of authority figures and classic Czech character studies.
A longtime collaborator with Czech novelist Bohumil Hrabal, who wrote the book on which “Closely Watched Trains” was based, Menzel also adapted his books “Cutting it Short” and “Larks on a String.” The latter film, a 1969 send-up of young people forcibly recruited to a labor camp,...
- 9/6/2020
- by Will Tizard
- Variety Film + TV
Film director who suffered censorship in her native Czechoslovakia for her 'anti-communist' films
Vera Chytilová, who has died aged 85, was one of the brightest of the new wave of film directors who emerged in Czechoslovakia in the mid-60s. Chytilová, Ivan Passer, Jan Nemec, Jirí Menzel, Ján Kadár and Miloš Forman were all products of Famu, the national film school in Prague. After the Russian invasion in 1968 put an end to the Prague Spring, Passer, Kadár and Forman left for the Us, and Nemec went into exile in western Europe. Menzel, who remained, was restricted despite repudiating his "anti-communist" films in 1974. But Chytilová, whose Daisies (1966) was the most adventurous and anarchic film of the period, was silenced.
Born in Ostrava, now in the Czech Republic, Chytilová had a strict Catholic upbringing. "I left that basic, personified faith," she later said. "It seemed like a crutch to me. I realised it...
Vera Chytilová, who has died aged 85, was one of the brightest of the new wave of film directors who emerged in Czechoslovakia in the mid-60s. Chytilová, Ivan Passer, Jan Nemec, Jirí Menzel, Ján Kadár and Miloš Forman were all products of Famu, the national film school in Prague. After the Russian invasion in 1968 put an end to the Prague Spring, Passer, Kadár and Forman left for the Us, and Nemec went into exile in western Europe. Menzel, who remained, was restricted despite repudiating his "anti-communist" films in 1974. But Chytilová, whose Daisies (1966) was the most adventurous and anarchic film of the period, was silenced.
Born in Ostrava, now in the Czech Republic, Chytilová had a strict Catholic upbringing. "I left that basic, personified faith," she later said. "It seemed like a crutch to me. I realised it...
- 3/16/2014
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Plot isn't what matters to Wes Anderson – his movies care more about lush palettes and playfulness. Seitz's collection of essays and interviews with the director reveals a rare film-maker who isn't afraid to take risks
In Wes Anderson's 2001 film The Royal Tenenbaums, an insensitive father fails to appreciate his daughter's childhood attempt at writing and staging a play. There's no narrative, he complains, and as for characters, "What characters? It's a bunch of little kids dressed up in animal costumes." You might be tempted to dismiss Anderson's films in similar terms: the stories don't always add up to much, and while we know we're watching grownups (played by major Hollywood actors such as Bill Murray, Anjelica Huston and Ralph Fiennes), they often behave more like children dressed in their parents' clothes.
This quality of Anderson's cinema is captured in Max Dalton's paintings for a lavishly illustrated recent book,...
In Wes Anderson's 2001 film The Royal Tenenbaums, an insensitive father fails to appreciate his daughter's childhood attempt at writing and staging a play. There's no narrative, he complains, and as for characters, "What characters? It's a bunch of little kids dressed up in animal costumes." You might be tempted to dismiss Anderson's films in similar terms: the stories don't always add up to much, and while we know we're watching grownups (played by major Hollywood actors such as Bill Murray, Anjelica Huston and Ralph Fiennes), they often behave more like children dressed in their parents' clothes.
This quality of Anderson's cinema is captured in Max Dalton's paintings for a lavishly illustrated recent book,...
- 2/15/2014
- by Jonathan Romney
- The Guardian - Film News
Even big directors need a break. Jiří Menzel, the Academy Award winning Czech director, was on one as it had been over 7 years since his last film, I Served the King of England (he's only made 3 features in the last 20 years). It seems he is in a holiday mode even in his freshest feature, Don Juans, which he not only directed but has also written. Menzel belongs among the Czech directorial big shots from the 60s, along Miloš Forman and Věra Chytilová, and is well-known for adapting the literary works of Bohumil Hrabal. That´s why it came as a surprise that he was shooting a raunchy comedy under the working title The Skirt Chasers. One of the most memorable scenes, or mostly...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 10/1/2013
- Screen Anarchy
‘Closely Watched Trains’: Oscar-winning movie classic gets special Academy screening (photo: Václav Neckár in ‘Closely Watched Trains’) Jirí Menzel’s first solo feature film, the World War II-set drama Closely Watched Trains / Ostre sledované vlaky (1966) was the 1967 Oscar winner in the Best Foreign Language Film category. Those living in the Los Angeles area will have the chance to watch a new print of Menzel’s classic on the big screen at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, September 23, 2013, at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. To be hosted by Oscar-nominated writer-director Philip Kaufman, the Closely Watched Trains screening will feature a rare onstage discussion with Jirí Menzel himself. A mix of light comedy and somber drama, Closely Watched Trains tells the story of Milos (Václav Neckár), a young railway worker whose routine life in a small Czech town is upended following the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia.
- 9/15/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: April 24, 2012
Price: DVD $69.99
Studio: Criterion
A scene from Věra Chytilová's 1966 farce Daisies.
Of all the cinematic New Waves that broke over the world in the 1960s, the one in Czechoslovakia was among the most fascinating and radical, as can be seen in the five feature-length films and five shorts found in Criterion’s Eclipse Series 32: Pearls of The Czech New Wave.
With a wicked sense of humor and a healthy streak of surrealism, a group of directors in Czechoslovakia —including future Oscar winners Miloš Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) and Ján Kadár (The Shop on Main Street)—began to use film to speak out about the hypocrisy and absurdity of the Communist state.
The four-disc collection kicks off the 1966 omnibus film Pearls of the Deep, which introduced five of the movement’s best-known voices: Věra Chytilová, Jaromil Jireš, Jiří Menzel, Jan Němec,...
Price: DVD $69.99
Studio: Criterion
A scene from Věra Chytilová's 1966 farce Daisies.
Of all the cinematic New Waves that broke over the world in the 1960s, the one in Czechoslovakia was among the most fascinating and radical, as can be seen in the five feature-length films and five shorts found in Criterion’s Eclipse Series 32: Pearls of The Czech New Wave.
With a wicked sense of humor and a healthy streak of surrealism, a group of directors in Czechoslovakia —including future Oscar winners Miloš Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) and Ján Kadár (The Shop on Main Street)—began to use film to speak out about the hypocrisy and absurdity of the Communist state.
The four-disc collection kicks off the 1966 omnibus film Pearls of the Deep, which introduced five of the movement’s best-known voices: Věra Chytilová, Jaromil Jireš, Jiří Menzel, Jan Němec,...
- 2/4/2012
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
One of last year's the most under-distributed and underseen major European imports, Jirí Menzel's "I Served the King of England" (2006) is lovely, silly, damnable antique, willfully pre-feminist and hopelessly out of fashion. The film, after all, dares to etch out Czech life under the Nazi occupation as preposterous farce, and it hardly halts there in favoring live-it-up hedonism over the grim realities of history. Menzel and his famous co-writer Bohumil Hrabal (who was enough of an institution to warrant a detour for a visiting President Clinton in 1994, and the two hit the local public house for a beer) had been through the Germans, Communist rule and the Soviet invasion, and it's difficult to argue that they haven't earned their esprit -- their two best films, "Closely Watched Trains" (1966) and "Larks on a String" (1990), similarly, and with exhilarating perverseness, portray oppression as absurd comedy, insisting that totalitarianism in all its forms is no match,...
- 2/24/2009
- by Michael Atkinson
- ifc.com
Movie Jungle is pleased to provide you with a chance to win a copy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's "I Served the King of England" on DVD! The film is a winner of the Fipresci Prize at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival as well as a nominee of the Golden Berlin Bear. The romantic comedy war film stars Ivan Barnev, Oldrich Kaiser, Julia Jentsch, Martin Huba, Marián Labuda and Milan Lasica. Jirí Menzel, helmer of "Larks on a String" and "The Beggar's Opera," directs the film as well as adapting from the novel by Bohumil Hrabal. What's it about? Dreaming of becoming a millionaire, a short but ambitious Czech works his way into a posh pre-war luxury spa, where his marriage to a Hitler-loving fräulein provides him with a golden opportunity to make his fondest wish come true. Enter now! ...
- 2/11/2009
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Movie Jungle is pleased to provide you with a chance to win a copy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's "I Served the King of England" on DVD! The film is a winner of the Fipresci Prize at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival as well as a nominee of the Golden Berlin Bear. The romantic comedy war film stars Ivan Barnev, Oldrich Kaiser, Julia Jentsch, Martin Huba, Marián Labuda and Milan Lasica. Jirí Menzel, helmer of "Larks on a String" and "The Beggar's Opera," directs the film as well as adapting from the novel by Bohumil Hrabal...
- 2/11/2009
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Movie Jungle is pleased to provide you with a chance to win a copy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's "I Served the King of England" on DVD! The film is a winner of the Fipresci Prize at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival as well as a nominee of the Golden Berlin Bear. The romantic comedy war film stars Ivan Barnev, Oldrich Kaiser, Julia Jentsch, Martin Huba, Marián Labuda and Milan Lasica. Jirí Menzel, helmer of "Larks on a String" and "The Beggar's Opera," directs the film as well as adapting from the novel by Bohumil Hrabal...
- 2/11/2009
- Upcoming-Movies.com
By Neil Pedley
This week finds Shakespeare meeting Sexy Jesus, a crash course in Czech history alongside a totalitarian demolition derby, apocalyptic sea monsters and Fred Durst trying to get in touch with his fuzzy side.
"Cthulhu"
Director Dan Gildark certainly isn't lacking for confidence. Whereas most first-time filmmakers would turn to the well-worn territory of twentysomethings and their quirky quarterlife crises for subject matter, Gildark has opted to tackle H.P Lovecraft's sprawling, heady, quasi-religious mythos from the short story "Shadow over Innsmouth" instead. Jason Cottle stars as Russ, a history professor who returns home to Oregon to execute his late mother's will and discovers his father is the leader of the coastal town's apocalyptic cult that centers on the fabled Cthulhu, an extraterrestrial deity that exists in a state of torpor at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. When Russ learns a mass sacrifice may be in the offing,...
This week finds Shakespeare meeting Sexy Jesus, a crash course in Czech history alongside a totalitarian demolition derby, apocalyptic sea monsters and Fred Durst trying to get in touch with his fuzzy side.
"Cthulhu"
Director Dan Gildark certainly isn't lacking for confidence. Whereas most first-time filmmakers would turn to the well-worn territory of twentysomethings and their quirky quarterlife crises for subject matter, Gildark has opted to tackle H.P Lovecraft's sprawling, heady, quasi-religious mythos from the short story "Shadow over Innsmouth" instead. Jason Cottle stars as Russ, a history professor who returns home to Oregon to execute his late mother's will and discovers his father is the leader of the coastal town's apocalyptic cult that centers on the fabled Cthulhu, an extraterrestrial deity that exists in a state of torpor at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. When Russ learns a mass sacrifice may be in the offing,...
- 8/18/2008
- by Neil Pedley
- ifc.com
- I don't see them as comeback kids, but rather, old school folk churning out the occasional gem and still knowing their ways about the process. Filmmaking is not like learning how to ride a bike. Just ask Wim Wenders. With a lot less frequency than a Woody Allen or a Jacques Rivette, the director behind 1966's Closely Watched Trains, was recently cited for his skill with a Best Foreign film nomination. Sony Pictures Classics has got Jirí Menzel's I Served the King of England on tap for a mid August release. We have the large poster below. Based on a picaresque novel by Czech novelist Bohumil Hrabal, this is the burlesque rise and fall of an apprentice waiter in Prague during the first half of the last century. Jan Dítě (Ivan Barnev) is short in height, but high in ambition. To put it bluntly, the young provincial waiter wants to become a millionaire.
- 6/16/2008
- IONCINEMA.com
- #75.I Served the King of England Director/Writer: Jirí MenzelProducers: Rudolf Biermann Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics The Gist: Based on a picaresque novel by Czech novelist Bohumil Hrabal, the burlesque rise and fall of an apprentice waiter in Prague during the first half of the last century. Fact: Menzel's best film ever: Closely Watched Trains was also based on a novel by Hrabal. See It: Winner of the Fipresci Prize at the past Berlin film festival, this should tickle the funny bone. Release Date/Status?: Spc hasn't set a date just yet....perhaps summer or fall? ...
- 1/29/2008
- IONCINEMA.com
BERLIN -- Forty years after their "Closely Watched Trains" won the Oscar for best foreign-language film, director Jiri Menzel has adapted another novel by the late Bohumil Hrabal, and history could well repeat itself when Academy members get to see "I Served the King of England", which screened here In Competition.
Sharing a similar sensibility, the new picture is the picaresque tale of an ambitious but naive Czechoslovakian waiter whose gumption, opportunism and blinkered awareness of events see him thrive amid political and social upheaval. It is a sumptuously told tale of childlike wonder in the face of darkest corruption and war, mixing high comedy, surreal sequences and genuine drama viewed from a wise, jaundiced perspective.
Given time to finds its audience, which is anyone who likes the Coen brothers, "Served" could do well across all territories as its visual humor and topical significance give it mainstream grown-up appeal.
The film begins with a grizzled, aging Jan Dite (Oldrich Kaiser) being released after 15 years in a Czech prison and assigned to a job as a roadman near the German border. He's given a wrecked building to live in, and as he works cheerfully to rebuild it, flashbacks tell how the fates have conspired to bring him to this pretty pass.
As a young man, Jan (Ivan Barnev) is short, observant and quick-witted, selling frankfurters to passengers on briefly stopped trains. In the first comic sequence -- which is shot like a silent film and will be echoed throughout "Serve" -- he hangs on to a large amount of change until the train pulls out, taking the buyer with it. His innate innocence surfaces too late, and he chases the train with arm outstretched to return the cash, but to no avail.
The film switches back and forth from Jan's adventures as a young man to his later life, where his remote existence is brightened by the appearance of a lethargic but attractive young woman, Marcela (Zuzana Fialova), accompanied by a professor (Milan Lasica) seeking wood to make violins and cellos.
Young Jan makes his way from one waiting job to a better one, and these hotel and restaurant scenes are wonderfully contrived with visual comedy matched by undercurrents of shrewd political comment. In one of the cleverest, the film's title is explained. Hrabal and Menzel employ satire with the sharpest scalpel exercised within comic episodes of high wit and slapstick.
Jan's young life is full of delectably willing young women, though they are usually at the beck and call of salacious capitalists. When he falls in love, it's with a young German woman, Liza (Julia Jentsch), who believes in all things Aryan and supports the Nazi invasion.
The story then follows their passage through World War II and later the Soviet communist occupation and how Jan gets everything he wishes for and then loses it all. Barnev is sublime as the young man, gifted with the physical grace of great comedians and with expressive features that encourage sympathy despite some of the unsympathetic things he does. Kaiser is equally good as the wiser, sadder older man.
The acting throughout is of the highest order, and other standout credits include the colorful production design by Milan Bycek and Ales Brezina's jaunty piano score.
I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND
Bioscop and AQS in co-production with TV Nova, Magic Box Slovakia, Barrandov Studios, Universal Production Partners
Credits:
Director-screenwriter: Jiri Menzel
Based on the novel by: Bohumil Hrabal
Producers: Robert Schaffer, Andrea Metcalfe
Director of photgraphy: Jaromir Sofr
Editor: Jiri Brozek
Production designer: Milan Bycek
Music: Ales Brezina
Costume designer: Milan Corba
Cast:
Jan Dite (young): Ivan Barnev
Jan Dite (old): Oldrich Kaiser
Liza: Julia Jentsch
Skrivanek: Martin Huba
Walden: Marian Labuda
Professor: Milan Lasica
Brandejs: Josef Abrham
Hotel Chief: Jiri Labus
Karel: Jaromir Dulava
Marcela: Zuzana Fialova
General: Pavel Novy
Running time -- 120 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Sharing a similar sensibility, the new picture is the picaresque tale of an ambitious but naive Czechoslovakian waiter whose gumption, opportunism and blinkered awareness of events see him thrive amid political and social upheaval. It is a sumptuously told tale of childlike wonder in the face of darkest corruption and war, mixing high comedy, surreal sequences and genuine drama viewed from a wise, jaundiced perspective.
Given time to finds its audience, which is anyone who likes the Coen brothers, "Served" could do well across all territories as its visual humor and topical significance give it mainstream grown-up appeal.
The film begins with a grizzled, aging Jan Dite (Oldrich Kaiser) being released after 15 years in a Czech prison and assigned to a job as a roadman near the German border. He's given a wrecked building to live in, and as he works cheerfully to rebuild it, flashbacks tell how the fates have conspired to bring him to this pretty pass.
As a young man, Jan (Ivan Barnev) is short, observant and quick-witted, selling frankfurters to passengers on briefly stopped trains. In the first comic sequence -- which is shot like a silent film and will be echoed throughout "Serve" -- he hangs on to a large amount of change until the train pulls out, taking the buyer with it. His innate innocence surfaces too late, and he chases the train with arm outstretched to return the cash, but to no avail.
The film switches back and forth from Jan's adventures as a young man to his later life, where his remote existence is brightened by the appearance of a lethargic but attractive young woman, Marcela (Zuzana Fialova), accompanied by a professor (Milan Lasica) seeking wood to make violins and cellos.
Young Jan makes his way from one waiting job to a better one, and these hotel and restaurant scenes are wonderfully contrived with visual comedy matched by undercurrents of shrewd political comment. In one of the cleverest, the film's title is explained. Hrabal and Menzel employ satire with the sharpest scalpel exercised within comic episodes of high wit and slapstick.
Jan's young life is full of delectably willing young women, though they are usually at the beck and call of salacious capitalists. When he falls in love, it's with a young German woman, Liza (Julia Jentsch), who believes in all things Aryan and supports the Nazi invasion.
The story then follows their passage through World War II and later the Soviet communist occupation and how Jan gets everything he wishes for and then loses it all. Barnev is sublime as the young man, gifted with the physical grace of great comedians and with expressive features that encourage sympathy despite some of the unsympathetic things he does. Kaiser is equally good as the wiser, sadder older man.
The acting throughout is of the highest order, and other standout credits include the colorful production design by Milan Bycek and Ales Brezina's jaunty piano score.
I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND
Bioscop and AQS in co-production with TV Nova, Magic Box Slovakia, Barrandov Studios, Universal Production Partners
Credits:
Director-screenwriter: Jiri Menzel
Based on the novel by: Bohumil Hrabal
Producers: Robert Schaffer, Andrea Metcalfe
Director of photgraphy: Jaromir Sofr
Editor: Jiri Brozek
Production designer: Milan Bycek
Music: Ales Brezina
Costume designer: Milan Corba
Cast:
Jan Dite (young): Ivan Barnev
Jan Dite (old): Oldrich Kaiser
Liza: Julia Jentsch
Skrivanek: Martin Huba
Walden: Marian Labuda
Professor: Milan Lasica
Brandejs: Josef Abrham
Hotel Chief: Jiri Labus
Karel: Jaromir Dulava
Marcela: Zuzana Fialova
General: Pavel Novy
Running time -- 120 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 2/19/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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