Czech film Alois Nebel selected for Venice festival

Prague, July 28 (CTK) - Alois Nebel, a new Czech film directed by Tomas Lunak combining animated and feature film techniques, has been selected for the main programme of the prestigious International Film Festival in Venice to be held on August 31-September 10, Martina Rekova told CTK Thursday.

The black and white film is based on a cult cartoon about a train dispatcher written by Jaroslav Rudis and Jaromir 99.

The information that the Czech film will be screened in Venice was announced at a press conference on the 68th festival Thursday.

"We feel immensely honoured that the world premiere will take place at the festival with such a long tradition as Venice. Alois Nebel is the first film of our Negativ production company to be selected directly for the main programme of the Venice festival," said Pavel Strnad, producer of Alois Nebel.

He recalled that another two Negative-produced films, The Country Teacher (Venkovsky ucitel, 2008) by Bohdan Slama and The Idiot Returns (Navrat idiota, 1999) by Sasa Gedeon, , had been screened at the Venice festival, one of the oldest film events in the world, but only in accompanying sections.

The presentation of Alois Nebel in Venice is a great promotion for the film's international distribution.

The Match Factory German company that is distributing films by Tom Tykwer and Aki Kaurismaeki, for instance, has already bought rights for Alois Nebel.

The film with Miroslav Krobot in the main role of train dispatcher Alois Nebel is set at an out-of-the way railway station in Bily Potok in the mountains near the Polish border in the 1980s.

Director Lunak uses the unique technology called "rotoscoping" combining feature and animated film for the first time in Czech cinematography.

Alois Nebel is the first cartoon novel in Czech history. The first book was published in 2003, followed by another two volumes. The novel has also been published in Germany and Poland.