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Pavla Janoušková Kubečková • Producer

“Collaborating with international partners broadens your horizons”

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- Cineuropa talks to Czech Producer on the Move Pavla Janoušková Kubečková, of nutprodukce, about independent production and working on international projects

Pavla Janoušková Kubečková • Producer

Czech producer Pavla Janoušková Kubečková studied journalism and film production, and co-founded production company nutprodukce with Tomáš Hrubý. She was one of the producers on Agnieszka Holland’s Burning Bush [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
as well as her latest, Spoor [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Agnieszka Holland
interview: Zofia Wichlacz
film profile
]
, and she has worked on the high-end HBO drama series Wasteland (read the news) plus the award-winning documentaries Show!, The Great Night and FC Roma [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, among others. This year, she was selected as the Czech representative for the Producers on the Move initiative, and Cineuropa talked to her about independent production and working on international projects.

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Cineuropa: Together with Tomáš Hrubý, you co-founded the production outfit nutprodukce in 2009. What led you to establish your own company?
Pavla Janoušková Kubečková: We both realised that executive production was not for us, and we were much more tempted by work as independent producers. Furthermore, neither of us saw his or her future in an institution. In my second year at school, I submitted a successful application to the State Cinematography Fund. I needed to secure co-financing for a documentary film, a school project, and found it natural to try to do it by myself without asking other production companies. I did the same thing the next year with the short animated film Graffitiger, which was nominated for a Student Oscar. When Tomáš asked me whether I would found a company with him and Peter Badač at that time, it didn't take me long to come to a decision. We had the same taste in films, music and art in general, and the collaboration was nice, since we had previously tried it out during the organisation of a school festival. Moreover, we both wanted to make things that would have ambitions to spread beyond the borders of the Czech Republic. Of course, in the beginning, we worked mainly with debutants.

nutprodukce has rather a wide angle, ranging from features and shorts, through animated and documentary films, to episodic formats. Why did you opt for such a wide-ranging angle?
Our intention was to make quality films that would be successful on the international market. We worked mainly with filmmakers whom we met at school, and they were coincidentally from the the animation and documentary departments; that's why we did so many of those in the beginning. However, we knew we wanted to make live-action fiction films as well. That happened with Burning Bush, where we found out that we enjoyed working with episodic storytelling and we felt we wanted to work more on high-end serial dramas, which had been booming for the last ten years on the world stage, which meant that a big creative and financial potential was flowing into it. For the future, we would like to focus on live-action and animated production.

Despite nutprodukce being a young company, you have won many awards. What did you decide to do differently compared to the more firmly established companies?
That’s a difficult question. Sure, we were lucky and were in the right place at the right time, but generally, since the beginning, we have paid a great deal of attention to development and working on the scripts; we selected our projects meticulously, and we initiated many of them and had worked on the producers' projects. Relatively soon, we became involved in quality TV production, which was not as clear cut as it seems today. We worked with talented people, directors, animators, and mainly with talented screenwriter Štěpán Hulík, who is a part of our company.

nutprodukce has worked on several international projects. What led you to get involved in foreign collaborations, and why did you decide to locate a branch of your company in Slovakia?
If you want to make feature films now in Europe, you basically can't avoid international co-production. The motivation is not only financial; collaboration with international partners broadens your horizons, and what's more important is that it creates a new audience and opens up new distribution territories. A wider offering of European film production finds its way into the cinemas and onto the state-run television channels, which it would not be able to do otherwise. Furthermore, if the collaboration is creative, it can improve the final quality of the film. In view of this initial situation, we found it natural to join forces with our Slovakian colleagues and work on films together. Our nations are historically, culturally and linguistically related, and Slovakia is the most natural co-producing partner for us. Merging the creative and financial potential of both countries is mutually beneficial.

What are nutprodukce's plans besides the ambitious feature debut Bohemian Rhapsody (read the report) by Ondřej Hudeček (read the interview)?
Besides the aforementioned project, we are working with Ondřej Hudeček and scriptwriters Kristina Májová and Vašek Hašek on the development of the miniseries Invisible, an adaptation of the famous Czech novel by Jaroslav Havlíček, a psychological fiction author. Simultaneously, we are working with Štěpán Hulík on the development of several series, and we are also working on the development of animated projects, a series with Matúš Vizár and a feature-length puppet film with Bára Valecká and Filip Pošivač. We are finishing two documentaries and are actively developing the feature film Camper by Zuzana Špidlová. Zuzana won in the Cinéfondation section at Cannes and is currently readying her feature debut. It is an odd road movie; it’s the story of a mother who has spent the last 12 years at home taking care of her son, who has Down syndrome. When she goes on holiday for the first time in years, she has to take her son as well. She travels in a camper van through Italy, where she experiences the long-forgotten sensation of freedom and comes to terms with many of her inner demons. The script is very authentic and personal, and has extraordinary power.

What are your expectations from the Producers on the Move initiative?
I expect to expand my contacts in this international environment. We are still working on building a network of contacts in terms of producers from other European countries with whom we could work on a long-term basis. Right now, I would like to get co-producers from Italy and France on board the project Camper.

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