What are you going to do if their world is against you and you’re still a child? In the end Ema Cerna, the hero of the story inspired by true events does find the strength and the will to survive. Because the most important part is the faith in herself. But if you’re truly you have to create someone else within yourself. Someone you can talk to, you can argue with and you can hope with together. It’s not easy.
The year 1989 brings freedom to Czechoslovakia but not to Ema (played by Klára Kitto). She’s 18 and she can finally start doing what she wants to do. But the stigma she carries continues to take over her life. The illusion of a father in America disappears, her second inner identity loses its voice and Ema has to learn to cope with her own mistakes. She has to transform the outer illusion of the dream America into herself. And only after many years will she be able to make peace with her having been ostracised, and find peace and forgiveness in her soul.
“The yearning to tell American Chick’s story gave birth to a screenplay that won the Krzysztof Kieslowski ScripTeast Award in Cannes 2014, a theatre performance seen by 90,000 people in the three years since its premiere and a cinematic live performance called Film (A)Live that took place during the pandemic and won the Czech Lion Award for Best Audio-Visual Achievement in 2020. The pinnacle of this journey will be the film”,Viktor Tauš told FNE.
The script penned by David Jařab is inspired by true events. “American Chick is based on the story of a girl I got to know when I was homeless. We told each other our stories, making some up as we went along, and eventually we couldn’t tell what was true anymore. We pretended to be brother and sister, and we built a particular solidarity that gave us strength. As to storytelling, the key question was how to tell the story of a girl that no one in the world cared for enough to become their heroine, and to relay that experience to a young audience so she would become their inspiration both in the local as well as the international context”, Tauš also said.
The film will rely on a special visual concept with each chapter of the life of the heroine presented in a different light and colours. "The visual concept is based on an explanation of the reality as a collection of memories stored in images of strong emotions. This gallery of otherwise processed and constant images is in some places enriched by a newly discovered visuality. The sum of the emotions and different perception of memories creates an unbelievable notion of the reality in the world of the film's heroine", production designer Jan Kadlec told FNE.
The film is produced by Viktor Tauš through HEAVEN’s GATE (Czech Republic) and coproduced by Barrandov Studio, Axman Production (Czech Republic), B Film (Slovakia) and K Film Swiss GmbH (Switzerland). Michal Síkora is executive producer and Aneta Novotná is line producer.
The project is supported by the Czech Film Fund with 320,000 EUR / 8 m CZK, the Slovak Audiovisual Fund with 88,000 EUR / 2.2 m CZK, the Regional Film Fund – Pilsen region with 26,000 EUR / 650,000 CZK, TV / VOD presales+ MG Distributor with 420,000 EUR / 10.5 m CZK, private investors (coproducer) with 746,000 EUR / 18,650,000 CZK and production incentives (Czech and Slovak) with 400,000 EUR / 10 m CZK.
The total budget is 2 m EUR / 50 m CZK.
Shooting started on 24 February 2022 and will wrap on 18 September 2022 after 56 shooting days.
Shooting is taking place in Prague, Marianské Lázně, Slaný, Fláje, Hostěradice, Loucká, Lovosice, Hradec Králové, Rožmitál pod Třemšínem and Moldava.
Bioscop will release the film in the Czech Republic.
Production Information:
Producer:
HEAVEN’s GATE (Czech Republic)
Viktor Tauš: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Coproducers:
Barrandov Studio (Czech Republic)
Axman Production (Czech Republic)
B Film (Slovak Republic)
K Film Swiss GmbH (Switzerland)
Credits:
Director: Viktor Tauš
Screenwriter: David Jařab
Production designer: Jan Kadlec
DoP: Martin Douba
Editor: Alois Fišárek
Music: Petr Ostrouchov
Costume designer: Jan Kadlec
Art Director: Daniel Tůma
Cast: Klára Kitto, Julie Šoucová, Pavla Beretová, Klára Melíšková, Zuzana Kronerová, Zuzana Mauréry, Vladimír Javorský, Denisa Barešová, David Novotný, Zdena Vrbová, Marika Procházková, Jan Jankovský, Tomas Sean Pšenička, Jana Kratochvílová, Eliška Křenková, Tereza Ramba, Jiří Štěpnička and kids from orphanages
