‘Charlatan’: Film Review | Berlin 2020
Who today has heard of Jan Mikolasek (1887-1973), once revered as a celebrated faith healer who is said to have helped millions (including the Communist president of Czechoslovakia and Nazi bigwig Martin Bormann) with his herbal remedies? A figure of blinding light and darkest shadow, he springs ambiguously to life in director Agnieszka Holland’s fascinating period drama Charlatan, in a dazzling perf by top Czech actor Ivan Trojan. Though shot in the most classic of idioms, the film commands attention with its mesmerizing performances and lively cross-cutting between key moments in the hero’s life. Playing out of competition as a Berlinale Special Gala (the director’s 2017 feature Spoor won Berlin’s Silver Bear), the Czech-language drama should make an appealing festival and art house entry.
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The Russian film about Putin’s generation won a special jury mention at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival 2018 which took place last week.
Only last year at Berlin, 
Karlovy Vary favourite Ivan I. Tverdovskiy follows up Zoology with a very different animal, a lean and mean thriller that offers a potent indictment of the endemic corruption in Russian society. With Tverdovskiy’s growing reputation and some saleable thriller tropes, Jumpman could build upon Zoology’s theatrical showing, with healthy festival attention a given.
U.K.-Irish production company Film and Music Entertainment (FAME), in Berlin with Agnieszka Holland’s "Charlatan" and Ivan Ostrochovsky’s "Servants," has unveiled five new film projects from its Irish division, including new films by Georgian helmer Mariam Khatchvani and Albanian director Fatmir Koci.
A kid throws himself in front of passing cars in Russian director Ivan I. Tverdovsky's biting look at a society where corruption permeates all corners.
Feature Documentary Fighting for Life a Dutch-Irish-South African partnership picks up the Peace, Sport and Documentary Award at the SPORTEL Awards in Monaco. Directed by Dutch Jamillah van der Hulst and South-African Ian Greyvensteyn the film is Exec produced by Film and Music Entertainment (IRE)’ Mike Downey and Cape Town’s Mark Dornford May of the Isango Company.
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