Jan Mikolášek represents the last hope for dozens of people in the totalitarian state of Communist Czechoslovakia. Although lacking in any formal medical education, he is gifted with an inexplicable talent for diagnosing and healing illnesses that have left doctors baffled, and yet he seems utterly helpless when it comes to his own self-destructiveness. His healing powers are seen as a threat by the Communist Party establishment, and he is arrested. During the course of his interrogations we learn that he was painfully sensitive as a child, and that as a young man in World War I he was forced to join a firing squad and shoot deserters. A neverending battle between good and evil unfolds in his mind as his psychosis progresses to schizophrenia, and his attempt at suicide allows him to leave the army. He discovers that treating others offers relief, and becomes a master at identifying diseases and the herbal treatments to counter them. He enters an unhappy marriage, mistreats his wife, then abandons her. He opens his own healing practice and hires an assistant, Antonín, who becomes the one person he can love.

During World War II, Mikolášek is arrested by the Gestapo, who accuses him of supporting the Resistance and sentences him to death. Instead, however, thanks to the Nazis’ penchant for mysticism, he becomes a healer to the German elite. After the war, he is accused of collaboration, but when he cures the future president, he becomes a protégé of the new Communist regime. Eventually, Mikolášek is accused of a murder that he could not have committed, and again, he has to make a life-or-death decision. He claims his assistant is the only one who could have mixed poison into the herbs, and, unexpectedly, Antonín takes the blame. But Mikolášek realizes that the evil inside him can be defeated by something greater than hate, and he confesses. Antonín is still sentenced to death, and Mikolášek receives six years in prison. After his release, he never works as a healer again.

“When we first set out,” says producer Šárka Cimbalová, “we were looking for a story with extraordinary potential, a story that would be inherently transcendental and identify universal phenomena that hold true for everyone. It would find a surprising way to make viewers feel an emotion they already know and desire. We wanted a story that would work as a reflection of the protagonist‘s inner strength, but at the same time go beyond this unique character in this particular period and social context. And then we came across Charlatan, a script by Marek Epstein based on historical events.” She adds, “It was obvious such a challenging script would need a strong-minded director, someone with a mature personality and years of experience, yet still searching for new ways of storytelling in fi lm. Once Agnieszka Holland confirmed her interest in the project as a director, both the budget and the scope became even more international.”

Since 2004, when the Co-Production Market was launched, Czech projects have been selected six times: Substitute, by Martin Krejčí (Bionaut Films) in 2004; Three Seasons in Hell, by Tomáš Mašín (Dawson), in 2005; Protector, by Marek Najbrt (Negativ), in 2006; My Dog Killer, by Mira Fornay (CIneart TV Prague), in 2010; and Outside, in 2016.