Section: SPECIALS

FRANZ KAFKA ZNÁMÝ NEZNÁMÝ

FRANZ KAFKA - LOST IN FAME

Pavel Šimák
CZ, 2024, 70 Min

 Franz Kafka, one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, is forever surrounded by a myth of darkness, melancholy and mystery. Pavel Šimák's documentary film shows that the private Kafka was a completely different person; someone who had a sense of humour, played sports, was enthusiastic about technical innovations and wanted nothing more than to write.

#doc #history #political

Performance

2024-11-06 | 10:00
Glad-House

In the tourist hotspots of Prague city centre, you can buy Kafka T-shirts and Kafka mugs. The portrait of one the city's most famous sons and author of The Metamorphosis always looks rather melancholic and thus seems to confirm his image as a morbid genius. According to literary scholar Reiner Stach, much of what we think we know about Kafka is pure legend however. Fellow Kafka experts join him in debunking Kafka clichés in this documentary in which the "Kafka myth" is dusted off and subjected to scrutiny: which biographical details are true, which have become legend, and have accounts of his life been coloured by "fake news“? Though Kafka suffered professionally as an insurance lawyer and had problems with his authoritarian father, in private he was quite a cheerful, sporty and sociable individual. He himself viewed certain of his stories which were interpreted as particularly dark as tragicomic. This Flaubert devotee was downright obsessed with writing, his only calling. Drawing on excerpts from newsreels, photos and documents from the time, the film reveals new facets of Kafka as a private individual. And also highlights his unfinished novel The Castle as central to the author’s oeuvre, incorporates excerpts from the 1968 film adaptation with Maximilian Schell and sets off in search of the places and buildings that influenced the work.

Text: Kira Taszman

06.11.2024 | 10:00 | Glad-House (original version with English subtitles + simultaneous translation into German), FSK0

Drehbuch
Pavel Šimák
Ton
Radek Vlach
Schnitt
Jiří Kubík
Ausstattung
Michaela Režová
Musik
Kafka Band
Produzent
Dušan Mulíček
Produktion
Czech Television
Co-Produktion
Arte G.E. I. E.
Pavel Šimák

Pavel Šimák - Pavel Šimák was born on 25 November 1972 in Sokolov, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]. He is an actor and director, known for Záhady Toma Wizarda (2007), Spanish Flu (2021), Tajemství pana M. (2022) and The Tales of Medicine.

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