SPC ‘Serve’ themselves Czech Oscar nominee

It's been a great year for veteran Czech director Jirí Menzel – a FIPRESCI Prize at  the Berlin film festival, accolades from his peers, rewarded with a slew of Czech Lion (year end awards) and finally Czech Republic's nomination for the Foreign Oscar category. Just before the long weekend, Sony Pictures Classics announced that they have picked up North American rights to I Served the King of England.

Its been more than 40 years since Closely Watched Trains, and the director still keeps churning them out. This picture has proved to be a very popular foreign title – sold to 47 countries, the screenplay focuses on two parallel stories. The first follows the youthful exploits and gradual maturing of an ambitious little man before the War and during the German occupation when, in love and guided by stupidity rather than opportunism, he finds himself on the side of the occupying power. The second story, interlinked with the first, concerns only a short period in his later life when, after years in prison, he seeks peace and solitude in an abandoned German village whose inhabitants were expelled after the war. His peace is only briefly disturbed by the arrival of a young working-class woman. Her youth and vitality bring back memories of his amorous adventures as a young man.

Expect SPC to put the film in limited release around the 2008 spring/summer period.