This year´s edition of the HKIFF offers two Czech film masterpieces. In the online section of the festival is the movie Charlatan (2020) directed by Agnieszka Holland. Charlatan tells a true story about a herbalist/ faith healer Jan Mikolášek, who was  a very powerful figure in the former Czechoslovakia. Celebrities, Nazi officers, and even Communist president Antonín Zápotocký were among his most esteemed patients. Holland cast Czech star Ivan Trojan and his son Josef as the troubled main protagonist, vividly embodying Mikolášek’s public struggles, darker, sadistic compulsions, and his secret romance. The movie Charlatan can be viewed online from 1.4.2021.

Drama Painted Bird (2019) is an adaptation of Jerzy Kosi ski’s 1965 novel.  Director Václav Marhoul’s black-and-white tour de force is the first film ever made in the Interslavic language. The Painted Bird tells a story of a young Jewish boy, forced to fend for himself in a hostile, East European hellscape during World War II.  Colored Bird will be screened on 2. and 5. 4. in the K11 Art House.

More information about ticketing can be found here.