The Prague Orgy depicts a 1976 journey to the capital of Communist Czechoslovakia by Roth’s alter ego Nathan Zuckerman. Apart from offering help to banned writers, Zuckerman is looking to rescue a Yiddish author’s unique collection of short stories and smuggle it out of the country. Despite the political oppression, he finds the city’s social life thriving, full of fun and open relationships. The more the regime clamps down, the greater people’s desire to retreat into their private worlds of intimacy. The project directed by Irena Pavlásková is a Czech-Slovak-Canadian coproduction with an international cast and will be shot in English. 

Documentary Fugue directed by Artemio Benki follows Martin, a young Argentinean piano virtuoso and composer who is hospitalized, following a nervous breakdown, at El Borda, Latin America’s largest and most distinguished, but also controversial, psychiatric hospital. Fugue is also produced by Artemio Benki and Petra Oplatková, in coproduction Austria, Argentina and France.

Artemio Benki is also a co-producer of another project selected for the forum, January by Andrey Paounov (BG / PT / CZ).
 

The Prague Orgy

CZ, SK, CA /estimated release October 2019 / 90 min
Director: Irena Pavlásková
Producer: Viktor Schwarcz - Prague Movie Company (CZ), Michal Kráčmer - Analog Vision (CZ)
Co-producers: Arina (SK), Timshell Pictures (CA)

The famous American writer Philip Roth based his book partially on his authentic experiences in 1970’s when he used to visit Prague after the Soviet occupation in 1968 in order to help the banned Czechoslovak writers. Despite the political oppression, social life, full of amusement and open relationships was rampant in Prague. The greater pressure of the regime was, the more people would resort to their free private intimate worlds. The story of the Prague Orgy depicts a journey of the famous American writer Nathan Zuckerman who arrives in Prague in 1976. He carries out a mission to save a unique collection of brilliant tales written in Yiddish by smuggling them across the border.

Learn more about all 46 projects selected for Venice Gap-Financing Forum here.

Find more about The Prague Orgy in an interview with the director Irena Pavlásková here.

Fugue

CZ, AT, RA, FR / estimated release November 2018 / 100 min
Director: Artemio Benki
Producer: Artemio Benki, Petra Oplatková - Artcam Films
Co-producers: Golden Girls Filmproduktion (AT), Buen Destino (RA), Petit a petit productions (FR), Lomo Cine (RA)

Martin P. is a young Argentinean piano virtuoso and composer, who has been since his breakdown four years ago a patient of El Borda, the largest and the most notable but also controversial psychiatric hospital in Latin America. The child prodigy and the most promising talent of his generation is now trying to find a way how to overcome his mental disease and come back to life outside the walls of the asylum and on the concert stages, while working on his new composition Enfermaria. Fugue tells unique, yet universal story about the obsession with perfection and creation, narrating the evolution of a human being who draws his strength from his own fragility. 
 

January

BG, PT, CZ / 90 min
Director: Andrey Paounov
Producer: Vaina Rainova - Portokal (BG)
Co-producers: Terratreme Filmes (PT), Artcam Films (CZ)

Somewhere in the Balkan Mountains, in a desolate 1970s hotel, five men are stuck in a snowstorm: the porter, his stroke-crippled friend, a priest, and the twin drivers of a broken-down snow blower. The closest town lies on the other side of the Black Oak Woods. One has to cross the woods to reach the town, but that is insane in the midst of winter: the road is snowed over, you can get lost and freeze, the wolves are hungry and can be heard howling all night long... Still, early that morning, Petar Motorov, must have harnessed his magnificent sleigh and headed to town. Nobody saw him leave, but the falling snow still hasn’t fully erased his deep tracks. But when the sleigh returns, Petar Motorov isn’t on it: there’s just a furcoat, a shotgun, the frozen carcass of large wolf, and a big, fat mystery. Where is Petar Motorov, and what has happened to him? One by one the men disappear in Motorov’s tracks, and each time a dead wolf returns. The Porter is the last man standing, left alone in the hotel that melts into a surreal world where past and presentco-exist. He dons the fur coat — a perfect fit, reloads the shotgun — such ease, and off he goes. Or perhaps he has gone already.