UPDATED: British director Sean Ellis’ World War II drama “Anthropoid,” starring Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan, will open this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, which runs July 1-9.
The film tells the true story of Operation Anthropoid, in which two Czech operatives, played by Murphy and Dornan, set out to assassinate SS officer Reinhard Heydrich, the main architect of Nazi Germany’s Final Solution. Parachuted into their occupied homeland in 1941, the two army-in-exile soldiers must find a way to carry out their fateful mission despite having limited information and little equipment in a city under lockdown.
Ellis, who won the 2013 best director prize at the British Independent Film Awards for “Metro Manila,” will attend the fest’s opening ceremony along with Dornan and co-stars Charlotte Le Bon, Toby Jones and Ana Geislerova.
“Since the film takes a look at a key event in Czechoslovak history, the assassination of Reichsprotektor Heydrich, we are glad that our festival will symbolically host its world premiere,” said Karlovy Vary IFF President Jiri Bartoska.
Produced by Mickey Liddell’s LD Entertainment (“The Grey”), Pete Shilaimon (“The Risen”), and David Ondricek and Krystof Mucha of Prague-based Lucky Man Films, “Anthropoid” was shot on location in the Czech Republic last year with backing from the Czech Ministry of Defense and the State Cinema Fund.
