Agnieszka Holland's ‘Charlatan’ to be Czech candidate for Oscar

Agnieszka Holland's ‘Charlatan’, inspired by the biography of the Czechoslovak herbalist Jan Mikolask, will be a Czech candidate for an Oscar in the best international full-length film category. The information was provided by the Polish Film Institute.
The world premiere of ‘Charlatan’ took place in February this year. during the International Film Festival in Berlin. The Czech-Polish-Irish co-production was presented in the special section of the event.
As Agnieszka Holland emphasized in an interview with PAP before the world premiere of the film, Mikolasek is a forgotten character.
"But when we started making the film, while talking to the extras and the crew, it turned out that everyone had heard of it. Everyone had someone in the family who was treated by him – grandma, grandfather, great-grandmother or aunt. And for the herbalist consultants we worked with, Mikolasek was kind of god. Some of his recipes were secret, but others are known and used to this day. Some, in turn, have been forgotten because he never wrote them down," she said.
We will see Ivan Trojan in the lead role. The cast also includes Juraj Loj and Josef Trojan. Marek Epstein is the author of the script. Martin Štrba is responsible for the photos.
‘Szarlatan’ will compete for the nomination of, among others with the Polish Oscar candidate Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert, ‘Snow Will Never Again’, which the world audience could see for the first time in the main competition of the Venice festival.
(PAP)