Archive of films Insect / Hmyz

Czech Republic / Slovak Republic
2018, 97 min

Section: Czech Films 2017–2018
Year: 2018

Can the creative process be more important than the work itself? Director Jan Švankmajer follows a troupe of nonprofessional actors rehearsing for a theatre performance in a small town while, at the same time, inviting the viewer onto the stage as well, where surrealism’s legacy is interwoven with the magic of human dreams, and where most of the questions that arise don’t have rational answers.

Synopsis

A troupe of amateur actors rehearsing the second act of the Čapek brothers’ satire The Insect Play at a local pub prompted legendary filmmaker Jan Švankmajer to contemplate man’s never-ending plod through life and to also consider the creative process itself. Right at the outset the movie’s creator tells his audience that he wrote the script without any rational or moral restraint, and in the course of the film he breaks the fourth wall several times in order to show us fragments of the work in progress. “Forget what you learned at drama school; the more embarrassing it is, the better it’ll be,” the actors are instructed by the director, who turned to crowdfunding for what is ostensibly his last film. The result is a unique piece in which the power of imagination pervades surrealism’s legacy.

Jan Škoda

About the director

Jan Švankmajer (b. 1934, Prague). Selected filmography: The Last Trick (1964), Alice (1987), Faust (1994), Conspirators of Pleasure (1996), Little Otik (2000), Lunacy (2005), Surviving Life (2010), Insect (2018)

Contacts

CinemArt, a.s.
Národní 60/28, 111 21, Praha 1
Czech Republic
Tel: +420 224 949 110
E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.cinemart.cz

ATHANOR – společnost pro filmovou tvorbu, s.r.o.
U 5. baterie 21, 162 00, Praha 6
Czech Republic
Tel: +420 233 322 905
Fax: +420 224 313 383
E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.athanor.cz

+ 1

Please accept Marketing cookies to watch the video

About the film

Color, DCP

Section:	Czech Films 2017–2018

Director:	Jan Švankmajer
Screenplay:	Jan Švankmajer
Music:	Bedřich Smetana, Nikolaj Rimski-Korsakov, Petr Iljič Čajkovskij
Editor:	Jan Daňhel
Art Director:	Jan Švankmajer, Václav Švankmajer, Veronika Hrubá
Producer:	Jaromír Kallista
Production:	ATHANOR
Coproduction:	PubRes s.r.o, Česká televize
Cast:	Jaromír Dulava, Kamila Magálová, Norbert Lichý, Ivana Uhlířová, Jiří Lábus, Jan Budař, Pavel Nový
Contact:	ATHANOR – společnost pro filmovou tvorbu, s.r.o.
Distributor:	CinemArt, a.s.

Guests

Jaromír Kallista

Producer

Adam Oľha

Director of Photography, Film Director

Jan Růžička

Director of Photography

Jiří Lábus

Actor

Helena Uldrichová

Other