10/06/2005

Snowboarders’s huge domestic box office success has started a chain reaction of pleasant aftershocks for its creators. Director Karel Janak has already secured finance and is busy preparing two new films with the same team. But while for Janak the impact is felt, mainly, at home, for his two teenage star-actors, Vojtech Kotek and Jiri Madl, the morning after has a more appealing, international flavour.

Kotek is confirmed for Janak’s new projects but until shooting starts he is taking a supporting role in the German/Czech co- production Der Letzte Zug (The Last Train), a Holocaust inspired story, directed by Rolf Schübel and Joseph Vilsmaier, currently in production on location in the Czech Republic. Kotek, who plays a young man in a transport train heading for a Nazi concentration camp, was hired by the legendary Polish-born producer Artur Brauner, who is said to be convinced that the Czech youngster is on the verge of launching his international career. "This is very, very different from the comedy characters that I’ve played so far" admits Kotek, "plus I have to brush up on my German which I haven’t spoken in four years".

Kotek’s ambitions might be helped by the fact that the German producers of CCC Filmkunst have high hopes for success internationally with the film, according to their Czech co-producer Ivo Pavelek of Diamant Films. The feature, which is expected to be out for Christmas, stars Gedeon Burkhard, best known for his role in the TV series Inspector Rex.
Jiri Madl has also said that he too had been approached by foreign productions but for the time being he is remaining faithful to the Czech film scene with a role in Marie Polednakova’s film Jak se kroti krokodyli (How to tame a crocodile) which is currently filming in Prague.