The film Planet Prague opens in theaters on August 4
Prague is perceived by many as a bustling world metropolis with a rich historical legacy. Few people realize that next to us, our other neighbors live here, i.e. various kinds of animals, flowers and trees. The authors of the monuments of the unique documentary Planet Prague released surveillance on famous and touristic places such as Charles Bridge, Petřín or Stromovka to mediate a unique view into the Prague wilderness.
“Our chief expert advisor, biologist Ondřej Sedláček, says with exaggeration, that the Prague National Park should be declared. The urban landscape is more varied than the countryside beyond the city. One of the ‘most’ is the fact that Prague is the place with the largest number of plant species in the Czech Republic,” says producer Radim Procházka.
The pandemic helped
The makers started shooting two years ago during the pandemic. And so, unlike their colleagues, who had nothing to “prick” during the lockdowns, the group around the director of the film, Marián Polák, could not praise the then-depopulated Prague. “The introduced restrictions on the free movement of people paradoxically helped us to capture completely unique shots of empty streets, which we will take as the basis for trick flags disappearing in the wild vegetation. Nature is helping us with the virus epidemic more than we could ever wish for. And we’ll save on that,” Procházka explained in the spring of 2020.
Mouflons in the grounds of the Thomayer Hospital David Malik
Birds and bugs and plants in the main role
And after two years, the film goes to the finale! The final adjustments are underway and it will appear on the cinema screens in early August. So what main characters can you look forward to? “The casting for the main characters and the supporting role was then won by the blackbird, the European mouflon, the green-legged plover, the great dormouse, the common hornbill and the gray heron,” director Hošek enumerates. But the film also features species of plants resistant to the seemingly inhospitable environment of Smíchovské nádraží. According to the creators, the adepts for the main role had to meet a number of requirements, among other things, their attractive behavior or interesting appearance was preferred.
“We were striving for a certain balance. For example, we didn’t want only birds in the film, even though they are usually a bit easier to shoot, but also mammals, insects, amphibians. We also chose a typical representative of some life strategy, which helps them survive in the city. Some animals are lucky enough to not have to change their habits, while other species are able to adapt very flexibly to their new environment. And we wanted to show this diversity in the film as well,” adds the director.
Thanks to the state-of-the-art technologies of Planet Prague, I will present to the audience, in addition to other animals, representatives of the plant kingdom or perhaps an exotic mushroom with red tentacles called Archer’s flower. Thanks to the fact that the filmmakers filmed sequentially in all seasons, they managed to capture the entire life cycle of the animals. A total of ten different types of recording devices were used for filming, including a thermal camera or an infrared camera. The film Planet Prague, which will be shown in cinemas by Aerofilms, will premiere on August 4.
Archer’s flower.
Author: Dalibor Marounek
The empty streets of Prague were recorded for the filmmakers
Author: 4press