The awards will be presented in Los Angeles on 12 March. Photo credit: Freepik.
Los Angeles/Prague, Jan 25 (CTK) – Four Czechs are among the nominees for the US Academy Awards (better known as the Oscars) this year: make-up artist Linda Eisenhamerova, special effect artists Viktor Muller and Kamil Jafar and sound mixer Viktor Prasil, all for their work on the film All Quiet on the Western Front. The nominations were released on Tuesday.
The awards will be presented in Los Angeles on 12 March.
Producer Pavel Muller, from the Sirena Film company, managed to secure the shooting of the German film “All Quiet on the Western Front” (Im Westen nichts Neues, 2022), directed by Edward Berger, in the Czech Republic, thanks to film incentives.
“It is a great thing that only 10 people came here (to the Czech Republic) with the director for the film shooting,” said Muller. “The rest of the crew were Czechs, including all stunt men and those for special effects, which are crucial roles for an action movie of this type. In this respect, the film is very Czech when it comes to its making.”
With nine nominations, All Quiet on the Western Front is one of the leaders in the Oscar nominations.
Muller refused to predict which of the nominees might go on to win the Oscar statue itself. However, speaking about the visual effects category, he told CTK that he would expect Avatar to win. Nevertheless, he described the Oscar nominations for Czech film artists as a great success for the Czech film industry in general.
“I don’t think that we have ever worked on anything better,” Muller said on behalf of Sirena, which also assisted in the shooting of “A Royal Affair”, a Danish drama from 2012.
“It was an immense joy to me, as even the nomination alone means great recognition. But this is primarily thanks to the crew and mainly the director who managed to make them all unbelievably captivated,” Viktor Prasil, the chief sound mixer of the film, told CTK.
“I was pleased that as far as tricks are concerned, such a small film has advanced among big movies,” said Viktor Muller, speaking to CTK. “We told ourselves that this film must be totally realistic, otherwise it would be a travesty. So whenever it was possible, we used real elements, no digital effects. We wanted the film to be as realistic as possible, which is a difference from films like Avatar, for instance.”
He also said that in his opinion, this film had no chance of winning an Oscar, but the fact that the Academy had noticed his work filled him with joy.
