The Czech Republic submitted a drama Charlatan for the best International Feature Category at the 93rd Academy Awards. A lifestory of Czech healer Jan Mikolášek (Ivan Trojan), who was persecuted from both Nazi and Communist regimes, is directed by world-famous Agnieszka Holland (Mr. Jones, Spoor, Burning Bush, In Darkness, Europa Europa).

Charlatan, which premiered at the Berlinale Special Gala section at this year’s Berlinale and appears in the first Selection of Euorpean Film Awards, is a Czech-Irish-Polish-Slovak co-production with Šárka Cimbalová of Marlene Film Production being the main producer. The other co-producers of the film are Film and Music Entertainment (IE), Madants (PL), Furia Film (SK), Czech Television (CZ), Barrandov Studio (CZ), Radio and Television Slovakia (SK), CertiCon (CZ) and Magiclab (CZ).

The film was supported by the Czech Film Fund in both development and production stages (with EUR 522 745), and in the film incentives programme, it also received the support of Polish Film Institute, Slovak Audiovisual Fund and Prague Film Fund.

During her celebrated career, Holland was nominated for the Academy Award three-times: Angry Harvest (Best Foreign Film, in 1986), Europa Europa (Best Adapted Screenplay, in 1992) and In Darkness (Best Foreign Film, in 2012). Charlatan is her first majority Czech feature film, although the auteur also directed popular Czech-Polish TV film Burning Bush.

Last year, CFTA selected Václav Marhoul’s black and white drama The Painted Bird as Czech Oscar candidate, and the film was lately shortlisted by the Academy but did not received the nomination in the end.

Three Czech (and Czechoslovak) feature films were awarded in the International Feature Film (former Best Foreign Film) category in the past: The Shop on the Main Street (Ján Kadár & Elmar Klos, in 1966), Closely Watched Trains (Jiří Menzel, in 1968) and Kolya (Jan Svěrák, in 1997). Last Czech feature film which received the nomination was Zelary (Ondřej Trojan, in 2004).