Idan Weiss as Franz Kafka in 'Franz' Courtesy of Films Boutique Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment Agnieszka Holland has never shied away from difficult subjects. The Polish filmmaker, a three-time Oscar nominee (Angry Harvest, Europa Europa, In Darkness) and winner of Venice's jury prize for Green Border, has built her career on stories of outsiders confronting oppressive systems. Her latest, Franz, takes on one of the ultimate outsiders: Czech writer Franz Kafka. Far from a conventional biopic, the film mirrors the disjointed nature of Kafka's life and his cryptic prose. Holland constructs a fragmented, kaleidoscopic portrait that blends real episodes with Kafka's fiction and his strange afterlife as both cultural prophet and commercial brand. Related Stories Movies 'Roofman' Review: Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst's Chemistry Sweetens Romance Veined With Melancholy in Derek Cianfrance's True-Crime Caper Movies 'Poetic License' Review: Maude Apatow's Directorial Debut Is a Bighearted but Frustratingly Aimless Campus Comedy For Holland, the project is personal. She first encountered Kafka as a teenager and later adapted The Trial for Polish television in 1981. Decades later, she still sees him as a "fragile younger brother," a writer whose vision of dehumanization feels more urgent now than ever. With Idan Weiss as Kafka and Peter Kurth as his father, Franz marks Holland's most ambitious attempt yet to reintroduce Kafka to a new generation. Franz had its world premiere as a special presentation at TIFF and will screen in competition at San Sebastián. Films Boutique is handling worldwide sales. Holland talked to THR about the lasting appeal of Kafka, casting him, and what's next. What draws you to Kafka's writing, and why is he still relevant today?The existential dimension of Kafka's writing has always been important to me, as well as the questions he asks without answering: What are the rules that govern our lives-legal, political, philosophical, religious? His work is cryptic, which means every generation can read him differently. That is why he has remained so relevant. In fact, I think he is more relevant today than he was 20 or 30 years ago, because we are once again facing the kind of dehumanization he foresaw in the 1930s and 40s. Kafka has also been deeply personal for me. Studying in Prague, I traced his footsteps. In 1981, I adapted The Trial for Polish television, which was one of the most exciting intellectual tasks of my career. I've always felt a personal connection-as if he were a fragile younger brother I had to protect. With Franz, I wanted to find a cinematic language that would capture that feeling and present him in a way that speaks to a new generation, many of whom experience the same alienation he did. When you went back to Kafka for this film, did he mean something different to you than when you first read him?I tried to reconnect with the feelings I had when I first discovered him as a teenager, before his image was buried under layers of interpretations, scholarship, and tourist kitsch. Kafka became a brand, even a tourist attraction, and his real humanity was hidden. I wanted to revive my original sense of him-without pretending I could capture the full truth. Kafka always escapes interpretation. Whenever you think you've nailed him down, he slips away. That mystery was important to preserve in the film. Did that also impact your stylistic approach?Yes. I knew I couldn't make a traditional biopic. Kafka's life and work are fragmented, so the film had to be fragmented too-piecing together shards of his fiction, his letters, and his lived experience. That approach allowed me to rediscover the freshness of my early connection to him. Agnieszka Holland Why does Kafka resonate so strongly with young people today?Because he expresses what many now feel: a sense of being different, of struggling to communicate directly, of being alienated by systems-family, work, society-that are at once strict and incomprehensible. Kafka's search for freedom from those forces, and his neuroatypical sensibility, speak to the experiences of today's youth. How did you cast Idan Weiss as Kafka?He was practically unknown, a young German stage actor, but Simone Bär, our brilliant casting director, spotted him immediately. From the beginning, it was clear he was Franz. Not only physically or because he is Jewish, but because of his sensibility-his strangeness, his humor, his apartness. He truly seemed to carry Kafka's soul. At times, it was difficult because he thought in ways different from the film crew, but I came to see that as essential. Without him, the film would not feel true. What would Kafka make of being a tourist attraction and global brand?He would be terrified. He had no narcissistic desire for fame. He wanted his writi