FNE at FINALE Plzen FF: Competition: Protector

Written by Irena Zemanová

Marek Najbrt spent more than three years preparing his award winning, 2.7 million Euro film Protector, screening in competition at Finale Plzen.

The drama of a Jewish actress, Hana, and her husband, radio reporter Emil Vrbata, who become a Nazi collaborator in Prague, also received a record grant of 630,000 Euros from the Czech state fund for support and development of Czech cinematography. "This amount helped us a lot to complete the large-scale budget," said producer Pavel Strnad, head of production company Negativ (www.negativ.cz)

Najbrt started the 45-day shoot of the war psycho-thriller in early September 2008, finishing on November 11, 2008. "We are not describing the history of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Protector is a story of two lovers, which suddenly becomes a drama. A love story changes into a story of self-destruction," Najbrt said. He enlisted his brother, acclaimed Czech designer Aleš Najbrt, to create the film's poster.

"We shot the movie in various parts of Prague, but sometimes it was hard to find the right location for the shooting of a story set in early 1940s," said Benjamin Tucek, who co-wrote the screenplay with Robert Geisler. According to him, the movie combines authentic Prague downtown exteriors with locations built at Barrandov studios.

Among the film's major co-producers are Czech television (www.ceskatelevize.cz), HBO (www.hbo.cz), and companies Soundsquare studio (www.soundsquare.cz) and UPP (www.upp.cz).The film was a major award winner at the national Czech Lion film awards.


Negativ Film Production

Ostrovní 30
110 00 Praha 1
Czech Republic

tel.: +420 224 933 755
fax: +420 224 933 472
web: www.negativ.cz