Franz | Agnieszka Holland

[Cremildo]

Films Boutique has reunited with “Green Border” director Agnieszka Holland on her Franz Kafka biopic “Franz,” currently in pre-production.

Set to begin principal photography in April in the Czech Republic and Germany — during the centenary of the author’s death — the film has already been acquired for theatrical distribution by Bac Films Distribution (France), X Verleih (Germany), Bioskop (Czech Republic) and Kino Świat (Poland).

Newcomer Idan Weiss will play Kafka, while Jenovefa Bokova limns Kafka’s friend and translator Milena Jesenska with Maria Schrader as his mother. Peter Kurth, Ivan Trojan, Josef Trojan, Katharina Stark, Sebastian Schwarz and Gesa Schermuly round out the cast. Cinematographer Tomasz Naumiuk — also behind “Green Border” and Holland’s “Mr. Jones” — will lense the film. +