\n<\/p>\n
\n\tPolish writer and director Agnieszka Holland discussed her new biographical film Franz<\/em>, about author Franz Kafka at the 59th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) on Monday, saying the movie tries to find the \u201cessence\u201d of the novelist and explores themes that are still topical, including Kafka\u2019s thoughts on the dangers of totalitarianism.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe filmmaker unveiled the trailer for the movie, starring German actor Idan Weiss, before talking about the creative process\u00a0of the film. The cast also includes the likes of Jenov\u00e9fa Bokov\u00e1, Peter Kurth, and Ivan Trojan. Holland wrote the script for the co-production between the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, and France, with Marek Epstein (Charlatan<\/em>), with Mike Downey serving as executive producer.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt\u2019s great to see it on the screen,\u201d Holland said after the trailer debut. <\/p>\n \n\tShe has in the past described Kafka as akin to a brother since reading him for the first time at age 14. \u201cHe stayed with me as an artist, a prophet,\u201d she explained on Monday. \u201cFirst, I was living in Communist Poland and in Czechoslovakia, what was Kafkaesque was the everyday reality of these countries, of these regimes.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tShe shared that Kafka\u2019s \u201ctriple identity\u201d also spoke to her as a \u201chalf-Polish, half-Jewish [person] living in a strange antisemitic Communist country.\u201d Holland also emphasized that Kafka was \u201cpractically forbidden in Czechoslovakia except for short periods\u201d under the Communist regime. <\/p>\n \n\tAfter the fall of communism, \u201cin the 21st century, slowly, Kafka became the biggest public tourist attraction and the brand for the [various souvenir] gadgets, frankly,\u201d the filmmaker argued. The goal of the film is to come closer to an answer to the question of \u201cwhat is the essence of Kafka, and how much that essence has been buried underneath the popular culture.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe film uses \u201can associative structure, more than a linear\u201d narrative structure, she added. <\/p>\n \n\tHolland highlighted that the themes in the film, such as life with a patriarch, \u201cthe prison of the family,\u201d the \u201cimpossibility to communicate\u201d and \u201chis fear of close identity,\u201d meaning his unwillingness to choose, are still current and topical, as is his \u201cfatalism and pessimism about humanity\u201d and \u201chis vision of the dangers of the future of totalitarian society, which is reducing the individual to a non-important negligible part.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAsked about becoming Kafka, Weiss said: \u201cHe was in my body for a long time, and he came out.\u201d He locked himself into his apartment for two months and only went out when it got dark to get used to the darkness, the actor shared. \u201cFranz for me is sensitivity,\u201d he also said. <\/p>\n \n\tMeanwhile, Downey highlighted Kafka\u2019s \u201crock star status.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHonoring the celebrated Czech writer with a retrospective last year, the centenary of his death, KVIFF highlighted how filmmakers the world over have long been inspired to either adapt his works outright or make movies that are \u201cKafkaesque,\u201d meaning that they are filled with the kind of angst, alienation and absurdity that made the novelist one of the most prominent and distinctive figures in 20th century literature.<\/p>\n \n\tKVIFF runs through July 12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Polish writer and director Agnieszka Holland discussed her new biographical film Franz, about author Franz Kafka at the 59th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) on Monday, saying the movie tries to find the \u201cessence\u201d of the novelist and explores themes that are still topical, including Kafka\u2019s thoughts on the dangers of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[3086,1171,3087,2287,3088],"class_list":{"0":"post-10212","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-agnieszka","9":"tag-film","10":"tag-franz","11":"tag-holland","12":"tag-kafka"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}