Slovak auteur Juraj Herz will begin filming March 17 on his new film, Habermann.The $10m production is a co-production between Art Oko Film of Germany, KN Filmcompany of the Czech Republic, and Wega Film of Austria.

Atlas Film International is handling international sales. Art Oko producer Karel Dirka expects to have a completed film in time for next year's Berlinale.

The story takes place in a small town in the Sudetenland around the year 1938, the year the Munich Agreement gave Adolf Hitler's Germany permission to accede the border areas of Czechoslovakia, and 1945, when post-war Czechoslovakia retaliated by expelling Sudeten Germans from their homes.

The film stars Mark Waschke (Buddenbrooks) as August Habermann, an ethnic German mill owner who marries Jana, a beautiful young Czech, played by Hannah Herzsprung (4 Minutes, The Baader Meinhoff Complex). Jana, half Jewish, is interred in a concentration camp during the war. After the war, she returns home to find her husband's mill destroyed by vengeful Czechs.

Other cast members include Wilson Gonzalez Ochsenknecht and Karel Roden. Dialogue will be inCzech and German.

Separately, Herz's new horror, Darkness, is scheduled for an August release in the Czech Republic. The film is his first since 1997's Pasáz. Film Europe is handling international sales.

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