Czech director-writer Beata Parkanová is in production with Czech-Slovak feature “Tiny Lights,” about a summer’s day in the life of six-year-old Amálka that captures a moment of transformation and loss, but also brings hope that she can turn this loss into the ability to observe and tell stories, Film New Europe reports.
“Tiny Lights” is set in the early 1990s in a small town in Czechoslovakia. Although the film features a main character who is a child, it is not a children’s film. It is an intimate family drama.
Parkanová said in a statement: “Against the backdrop of a heated marital crisis and complicated family relationships, the film captures a moment in the main character’s life where she undergoes a major transformation. We find ourselves in a day where external circumstances break the boundaries of Amálka’s world and bring to it a new, fully lived experience complete with darkness and personal crisis. At the end of the day, Amálka becomes someone who has experienced the state of her own dissociation and lost the assurance of immediate childhood, experiencing the world as a place where anything is game.”
The film is produced by Vojtěch Frič and Přemysl Martinek through LOVE.FRAME (Czech Republic), and coproduced by Peter Veverka through AZYL Productions (Slovakia), and by Ondrej Kulhanek through Bontonfilm Studios (Czech Republic).
Martinek told FNE: “Beata Parkanová is again traveling to the past and comes with another unique period drama. This time we are at the beginning of the nineties, the age of new freedom for our region, an age of promises. The film happens in one day and the story is about the break-up of a young married couple through the eyes of their six-year-old daughter. It is again driven by the dialogues of family members, who are trying to protect the girl from what is happening but contrary to that wish, they cannot protect her from it, and take away her innocence.”
The film is being shot in the South Moravia region and Slovakia. It is expected to be ready next summer.
Courtesy of FNE
The film was supported by Czech Film Fund (10 million CZK for production), AVF Slovakia (230,000 Euros) and JFNF (regional film fund – 1.5 million CZK). The budget is 1.2 million Euros/31 million CZK.
Parkanová is a screenwriter, director and novelist. She graduated from the FAMU Film School in 2015. Before starting a film career, she wrote several books, including ones for children. Her first feature film was “The Moments” (2018), produced by Fog’n’Desire Films, which screened in the East of the West competition at Karlovy Vary Film Festival in 2018. Her second feature “The Word” (2022), which was produced by LOVE.FRAME and Bontonfilm Studios, won awards in Karlovy Vary for best director, and for Martin Finger’s performance.
This article is published in partnership with online news service Film New Europe, which covers film and TV industry news from across Central and Eastern Europe.
