Czech Films 2003-2004 2004 / Kráľ zlodejov / Slovak Republic, Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, France 2003
A poetic drama about the fate of children from Ukraine who set out for the world of their dreams: the West. The film is inspired by real cases of children the director met in Germany and Italy at the beginning of the nineties.
Thanks to their artistic abilities, ten-year-old-boy Barbu and his thirteen-year-old step-sister Mimma find their way out of the spiritual and material poverty of a decayed Roma village somewhere in Ukraine. Their wretched father sells them to his worldly countryman Caruso, who affirms he is looking for new talent for his circus in Berlin. However, the children’s dream of artistic fame is immediately broken on the sharp edge of reality; Caruso smuggles them across the border, splits them up, and begins to train the young boy as a pickpocket. Alongside his crafty mate – the Albanian lad Marcel – Barbu experiences a daily hell in the city streets, but only slowly begins to understand that he has become the victim of a cynical swindler. Caruso has a weakness for the skilful young artist, as does his dying girlfriend Julie. When Barbu discovers that Caruso has sold Mimma to a brothel, he decides to take his fate and that of his sister into his own hands. But they need more than courage to get back home…
103 min / Color, 35 mm
Director Ivan Fíla
/ Screenplay Ivan Fíla
/ Dir. of Photography Vladimír Smutný
/ Music Michael Kocáb
/ Editor Ivana Davidová
/ Producer Helga Bähr, Rudolf Biermann, Ivan Fíla
/ Production Charlie’s Bratislava, koprodukce / co-production: Lichtblick Filmproduktion
/ Cast Iakov Kultiasov, Katharina Thalbach, Julia Khanverdieva, Lazar Ristovski, Paulus Manker
/ Contact Charlie's Bratislava, In Film Praha s.r.o., Bioscop (Magicbox a.s.)
Ivan Fíla (b. 1956, Prague) began as assistant to the directors Jan Schmidt and Zdeňek Brynych. In 1977 he emigrated to West Germany, where he studied direction and dramaturgy at the Fachhochschule in Cologne. He established himself as a director with a number of short and feature-length documentaries which won a number of awards. He made his feature debut in 1996, with the psychological drama Lea, starring Lenka Vlasáková in the title role and based on his own script. He was already considering a film about children who become the victims of organised crime at the beginning of the 1990s. The script for King of Thieves was ready in 1992, but a number of problems stood in the way of its realisation until the director – owner of the production company Ivan Fíla Filmproduktion – succeeded in arranging a production alliance with companies from Austria, France, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Charlie's Bratislava
Jeséniová 47, 831 01, Bratislava
Slovakia
Phone: +421 254 655 027, +421 905 239 702
Fax: +421 263 832 493
E-mail: [email protected]
In Film Praha s.r.o.
Žitná 23, 110 00, Praha 1
Czech Republic
Phone: +420 222 515 357
Fax: +420 222 515 613
E-mail: [email protected]
Bioscop (Magicbox a.s.)
Na Klikovce 7, 140 00, Praha 4
Czech Republic
Phone: +420 221 436 100
E-mail: [email protected]
Ivan Fíla
Film Director
Ivana Davidová
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