Prolific Slovakian filmmaker Peter Bebjak completed The Report, his eagerly expected drama about a man’s escape from Auschwitz (read the news), in May 2019. He then worked on epic fantasy series The Slavs [+lee también:
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“The reasons I started developing this drama were two. The first was the opportunity to work again with the team with which we made the Czech Lion award-winning miniseries Justice, and the second was the strong script written by Petr Bok,” reveals Katěřina Ondřejková, creative producer on The Actor. The psychological crime miniseries Justice, produced by Rastislav Šesták and Peter Bebjak (who directed it) for Slovakian production outfit D.N.A. Production, was bought by U.S. firm Pearl Street Films, which acquired the rights for the American market and is owned by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck (read the news).

The Actor is set in the 1950s, the peak period of communist repression, in Czechoslovakia. The official synopsis is: “Stanislav Láník lives alone with his grandmother and his sister Agnes. His father was killed in the war in the service of the Western Army, and his mother died in prison as a collaborator. Stanislav and Agnes are doomed to survive without a chance for education or better work. Although Stanislav is a talented actor in amateur theatre, he is forced to abandon his acting career, and begins working as a janitor at a university. The Secret Police gives him the task of focusing on the university’s professor of mathematics, whom the regime suspects of collaboration.” Stanislav hides his homosexual orientation, at the time punishable by prison, and that is precesily what the Secret Police uses to manipulate him. “We are narrating the story of an anti-hero in The Actor, but we are not narrating it in black and white. We are interested in motivations, why he acts the way he acts, and thanks to them, we can actually understand his behaviour,” explains Ondřejková.

Written by Petr Bok (Ghoul [+lee también:
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entrevista: Štepán Altrichter
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entrevista: Beata Parkanová
entrevista: Beata Parkanová
ficha de la película] by Beata Parkanová and stars in the upcoming biopic dramedy Havel (read the news). Martin Finger, Pavel Batěk, Adrian Jastraban, Jand Nedbal and Elizaveta Maximová appear in supporting roles. Slovakian cinematographer Martin Žiaran, a close collaborator in several of Bebjak’s projects, lensed the miniseries. The Actor is currently in the editing room and expected to air sometime in 2020.

The Actor is produced by D.N.A. Production (Rastislav Šesták, Peter Bebjak) and co-produced by Czech public broadcaster Czech Television and Radio and Television Slovakia.