06-11-2011

PRODUCTION: Agnieszka Holland directing Czech miniseries for HBO Central Europe

By Katarzyna Grynienko

    WARSAW: Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland will direct a miniseries about the 1968 Prague Spring crackdown and Jan Palach, a young student who set himself on fire as a form of protest. The series is planned to be available to all HBO subscribers in Central Europe.

    Holland will begin shooting in Prague on 2 March of 2012, through 20 May.

    "In 1969 I was a student of the film school in Prague. Everything that the script covers, I was very engaged in. Therefore it is a very important story for me because of personal reasons as well. I am very happy that the young Czech film professionals are interested in this very significant event and time period. Both the screenwriter and the producer are twenty years old," Holland said in an interview with Polish Radio.

    The miniseries, commissioned by HBO Central Europe (www.hbo-centraleurope.com), will have three episodes lasting over one hour. The script will cover the period of over 12 months after Palach set himself on fire as an act of protest to the Warsaw Pact military aggression. Apart from Palach's family, one of the main characters is a courageous female lawyer inspired by a real person. The cast will include Czech and Slovak actors.

    The script for the series was written by Setpan Hulik under the Czech title Horici ker (Burning Bush). The minis series is planned to be completed by the end of 2012 and be available to all subscribers in the region of HBO Central Europe, including Poland.