FILM-ANTHROPOID/SEAN ELLIS British film director Sean Ellis films his new movie 'Anthropoid' in Prague

Record ID: 143668

  • Title: FILM-ANTHROPOID/SEAN ELLIS British film director Sean Ellis films his new movie 'Anthropoid' in Prague
  • Date: 17th August 2015
  • Summary: KARLOVY VARY, CZECH REPUBLIC (FILE JULY, 2015) (REUTERS) NEWS CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTOR JAMIE DORNAN SAYING: "First I learned of operation Anthropoid was when I read the script and I was blown away by it. The fact that a story of that magnitude can exist and you not know about it I found kind of fascinating. Playing a real person - I think as an actor you are
  • Embargoed: 1st September 2015 13:00
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  • Location: Czech Republic
  • Country: Czech Republic
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAF4Z4R28BKKJQVLNMELJ7R29UV
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS STORY RAN ALSO ON OUR SHOWBIZ SERVICE
    Production was underway on Saturday (August 15) in Prague on the set of British film director Sean Ellis' new movie 'Anthropoid'.
    Ellis' film is based on a real historical event remembered as one of the most important and emotional moments in WWII Czech history - the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich - a high ranking German Nazi official.
    Fifty Shades of Grey star Jamie Dornan and Inception actor Cillian Murphy play the Czechoslovak soldiers who took part in the assassination operation.
    SS Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich was appointed to the office of acting Reichsprotector of Bohemia and Moravia in September 1941. Known for his brutality he aimed to suppress any resistance to Nazi Germany, and was a key player in the Final Solution - the extermination of Europe's Jews. Operation Anthropoid was the code name for the operation which aimed to assassinate Heydrich.
    On May 27, 1942 paratroopers Jan Kubis, Josef Gabcik and Josef Valcik attacked Reinhard Heydrich's car in Prague's Liben quarter. Gabcik first tried to shoot him with a machine gun, but it failed. Then Kubis threw a bomb at the car and Heydrich was hit by shrapnel. Heydrich didn't die at the scene, but the attack wounded him and he died in hospital on June 4th.
    Following the attack the three assassins hid in the St. Cyril and Methodius Church in Resslova Street in Prague for three weeks, until their whereabouts were revealed. On June 18, 1942 they came under attack from German troops and defended their positions with help from four comrades from the resistance movement. Three men firing from the church gallery and four hidden in the crypt resisted almost 800 German soldiers for around 14 hours, until they had ammunition left in their guns.
    Dean Jaroslav Suravsky pointed to signs of the fight in the church.
    "Here is where the big fight between the three (assassins) and the outnumbering Germans started," he said.
    "This lasted a long time, they were shooting and throwing hand grenades here, you can still see the damage on the gallery up there. After two hours, when our paratroopers were unable to resist anymore, they took poison or shot themselves dead."
    The heroic act led to an intensification of German repression, but also set off many further resistance activities in the country. Operation Anthropoid helped strengthen long-dormant feelings of national self-confidence, patriotism and the personal bravery of individuals.
    "I was fascinated by this story just from the true events that happened and it felt like a movie to me. It's so dramatic and has all the sort of things you would want from a movie, it is very thrilling and exciting and ultimately there's lot at stake for the people involved," Ellis said.
    "I wanted both Gabcik and Kubis to be very, very accessible, that was the thing for me. I wanted them to be normal men, I didn't want them to be super soldiers, I didn't them to be elite. They were normal men with normal fears given an extraordinary task and that was basically how we decided to cast it, so the actors we chose I felt would give us the sense of the everymen," he added.
    The assassination, along with the events that led up to it and the fallout, has been the subject of many domestic films and television productions. Now the story has caught attention of an international artist, whose work promises to show Czech audiences a new and untraditional perspective on these familiar events.
    Producer Pete Shilaimon says that thanks to Ellis's fascination with the story, the film should turn out to be historically accurate.
    "Our director for 14 years studied this mission like it was school for him. He studied everything, watched every documentary, watched every film ever made about this and read so much about this operation that I think we're keeping it really close to historical events."
    Ellis, Irish actor Dornan and Czech actress Ana Geislerova, together with the producers Shilaimon, Chris Curling, Anita Overland and David Ondricek, introduced their film at a news conference at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in July this year.
    Dornan who plays Jan Kubis said at the time: "First I learned of operation Anthropoid was when I read the script and I was blown away by it. The fact that a story of that magnitude can exist and you not know about it I found kind of fascinating."
    "Playing a real person - I think as an actor you are sort of desperate to do that when you can if it's a story that moves you. It is also great in terms of there's something real there to draw upon and you can dig up as many facts to try to shape the character as best you can and you don't often get that opportunity with characters who are fictional."
    Dornan most recently starred as the lead, Christian Grey, in the successful feature Fifty Shades of Grey grossing over $500M worldwide.
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