Celebrated Czech filmmaker Jan Švankmajer in crowdfunding campaign

Acclaimed Czech surrealist filmmaker Jan Švankmajer has launched a crowdfunding campaign together with Athanor Productions for Insects, which he says will be his final film.

Švankmajer and long-time producing partner Jaromir Kallista seek to raise upwards of US$150,000 towards the film’s budget.

Already in development for five years, Insects is set to include Kafkaesque imagery and centres on a local pub where actors rehearse a Čapek Brothers play and find themselves transforming into their characters. Production on the film is due to start during the summer.

“We are trying crowdfunding to finance a part of the film for the first time but we think this is a certain option for the kind of films we make; that is films that are very difficult to fund because they are not commercial, they do not promote anything, or are not blockbusters that would attract masses of viewers,” Švankmajer told Screen Daily.

Švankmajer is best known for such features as Alice (1988), Faust (1994), Conspirators of Pleasure (1996), Little Otik (2000) and Lunacy (2005), and is particularly known for his use of stop-motion technique.

More details of the campaign can be found here.

Source: Screen Daily