Czech Film "Shameless" Gets Picked Up Out of Toronto

A scene from Jan Hrebejk's "Shameless." Image courtesy of the Toronto International Film Festival.

Jan Hrebejk's "Shameless" - having its International Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival - has been acquired for North American release by distributor Menemsha Films. Producers Rudolf Biermann and Tomas Hoffman of In Film Praha announced the deal for the film - already a major success in the Czech Republic - today.

"Menemsha Films has worked together with filmmaker Jan Hrebejk on every one of his films since the Academy Award-nominated Divided We Fall," Rudolf Biermann and Tomas Hoffman said in a statement. "Menemsha Films is dedicated to making this newest Jan Hrebejk film a success in North America to add to the film's phenomenal success we had here in the Czech Republic".

The Toronto International Film Festival described the film:

"Oskar (Jirí Machácek), a popular TV weather forecaster, suddenly wakes up to an altered sense of identity: rather than belonging to easygoing wife Zuzana (a bewildered Simona Babcáková), he feels he ought to belong to the whole wide world – hence the national embarrassment. His first entanglement is with babysitter Kocicka (Eva Kerekéšová), a lean teenybopper who's more attached to her pet turtle than her older lover – at least until he accidentally smothers it in the dryer. Next in line is mature pop icon Nora (Emília Vašáryová), who's about to teach him a thing or two about freedom: the more people you let in, the more alone you end up feeling."

Menemsha recently released Hrebejk's previous film - "Beauty in Trouble" - in U.S. theaters. They have scheduled the theatrical release of "Shameless" for February 2010.