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Edition 2020
Films
Inspired by the life of Jan Mikolášek (1889-1973), a Czech healer who treated hundreds of individuals with plant-based medicine, Charlatan is set against the background of the two World Wars and the three regime changes which marked the socio-political context of Czechoslovakia throughout the 20th century. Despite his healing accomplishments, Mikolášek’s unconventional methods are not always well-received by the society he lives in: the communist regime designates him as a charlatan. In this film, Agnieszka Holland explores the relationship between the personal and the political, between the passing of time and human imperfection.
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Cast:
Ivan Trojan, Josef Trojan, Juraj Loj, Jaroslava Pokorná -
Original Title:
Šarlatán -
Country:
Czech Republic, Ireland, Poland, Slovakia -
Year:
2020 - 118’ Subtitles: Portuguese
Director
Agnieszka Holland
Agnieszka Holland is one of Poland’s most distinguished filmmakers and screenwriters. Born in 1948, she studied at the film school in Prague and began her career as an assistant to directors Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda before emigrating to France right before the 1981 implementation of the martial law in Poland. From her vast international oeuvre, widely acclaimed and celebrated as an important political contribution to Polish cinema, she is best known for her depictions of the Holocaust in her films Europa Europa (1991), winner of the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and In Darkness (2011), which was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards. In 2017 she received the Alfred Bauer Prize, part of the Silver Bear series, for her film Spoor at the Berlinale. Her latest work, Charlatan (2020), is part of the Out of Competition section at LEFFEST’20.
