06/03/2019 - The veteran Polish filmmaker will tackle the real-life story of a folk healer wrestling with his inner demons

Actor Ivan Trojan and director Agnieszka Holland (© CinemArt)

After premiering her latest oeuvre, Mr. Jones [+see also:
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film profile], and introducing the television project Napoleon at the recent Berlinale, veteran Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland is bracing for another shoot. In her next project, Charlatan [+see also:
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film profile], written by Marek Epstein, Holland will try her hand at a period biopic about a local folk healer, Jan Mikolášek, who lived between 1887 and 1973, and who allegedly helped five million people without even having a formal education in medicine. “Mikolášek was unbelievably smart and intuitive, but also a rational individual who managed to diagnose people and help them with herbs,” Holland said about the protagonist. 

Principal photography is scheduled to start in April and continue in June on location in the Czech Republic. Six-time Czech Lion-winning actor Ivan Trojan, who previously worked with Holland on Burning Bush [+see also:
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film profile], will star in the leading role. “It’s a story of an extraordinary man; however, he is a very ambiguous character. He knows he is saving lives, and he knows he can help people, yet he realises he is in need of help himself,” Trojan explained. The younger version of Mikolášek will be portrayed by Trojan’s son Josef. “What is most powerful about Charlatan for me is not what it says, but how it says it. I was charmed by its original narrative style and cinematic moderation. Everything is distinctive yet emotive, fragile in expression yet strong in substance,” adds Holland.

Slovakian cinematographer Martin Štrba, who most recently lensed Martin Šulík’s The Interpreter [+see also:
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film profile], will be behind the camera. Štrba won the Czech Lion Award for Best Cinematography for A Prominent Patient; his wife, Katarína Štrbová Bieliková, did likewise for Best Costume Design, and she will be joining him on Charlatan. Pavel Hrdlička, who edited some of Holland’s previous oeuvres, such as Burning Bush and Spoor [+see also:
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film profile], is returning to the cutting room for this movie, and another of Holland’s collaborators, composer Antoni Komasa-Łazarkiewicz, is also on board. 

Charlatan is being produced by Czech company Marlene Film Production (Šárka Cimbalová), and co-produced by Slovakia’s Furia Film (Lívia Filusová), Ireland’s Film and Music Entertainment (F&ME, Mike Downey and Sam Talor), Czech Television (Jaroslav Sedláček) and Radio and Television Slovakia. The project was supported by the Czech Film Fund, the Slovak Audiovisual Fund and the Czech Film Foundation. The domestic premiere is set for 20 February 2020, courtesy of CinemArt.