"Lunacy" Film Opening with Guest: actor Jan Triska August 18, 2006

LUNACY
Opens August 18, 2006 at Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles
Opening Night Guest Speaker: actor Jan Tříska

Landmark’s Nuart Theatre 11272 Santa Monica Boulevard, just west of the 405 Freeway, in West Los Angeles (310)281-8223
**Actor Jan Tříska in person on August 18, Q&A after 7:00pm; intro to 9:50pm**
Friday, August 18-Thursday, August 24 for an exclusive one-week engagement
Showtimes will be nightly at 4:00, 7:00 & 9:50, plus additional afternoon shows on
Sat & Sun at 1:00.
Advance ticket purchase at: www.moviefone.com
Tickets are $9.50 for general admission and $7.25 seniors and children
Official film site: http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/
The latest provocation from surrealist master Jan Svankmajer (LITTLE OTIK) is loosely based on two short stories by Edgar Allan Poe and inspired by the works of the Marquis de Sade. In nineteenth-century France (albeit one full of deliberate anachronisms) a young man, Jean Berlot (Pavel Liska), is plagued by nightmares in which he is dragged off to a madhouse. On the journey back from his mother’s funeral he is invited by a Marquis (Jan Tříska) he meets at lunch to spend the night in his castle. There Berlot witnesses a blasphemous orgy and a ‘therapeutic’ funeral. Berlot tries to flee but the Marquis insists on helping him conquer his fears and takes his guest to a surrealistic lunatic asylum where the patients have complete freedom and the staff are locked up behind bars. Described by Svankmajer himself in a prologue to the film as a ’philosophical horror film,” LUNACY combines live action and stop-motion, sex and violence, grand guignol terror and gallows humor, and a lot of animated meat.

Jan Tříska studied acting at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts (DAMU) in Prague between 1955 and 1959 and became historically the youngest member of the drama ensemble of the National Theatre (1959-66). There he excelled, among other roles, as an unforgettable Romeo and at the age of 25 he became a symbol of the emerging youth. He left the National Theatre with the director Otomar Krejča into the newly founded Divadlo za branou (1966-72) and after its closure he joined the Prague Municipal Theatres (1972-77). In 1977 he left Czechoslovakia and started a new life and career in the USA. Acclaim for his large body of stage work includes the Connecticut Critics Award for his role in Largo Desolato at Yale Repertory, and the Alfred Radok Award and Czech Critics Award for performing King Lear at the Shakespeare Festival at Prague Castle. He was awarded The Medal of Merit from the President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel. Screen credits include: Lunacy, Up and Down, Zelary (Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Film 2004), One Hand Can't Clap, Blizzard, Cahoots, Apt Pupil, Ronin, The People vs. Larry Flint, Andersonville, My Antonia, World War II: When Lions Roared, Osterman Weekend, 2010, Uncommon Valor, The Elementary School (Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Film 1992), The Amateur, Reds. He collaborated with many respected directors, for instance Peter Brook, Peter Sellars, Anatoly Efros, Warren Beatty and Miloš Forman. He acted in plays of William Shakespeare, G. B. Shaw, Anton Chekhov and Václav Havel. Jan Tříska regularly acts in American film and TV productions.

LUNACY CRITICAL RAVES
“ONE OF THE YEAR'S BEST FILMS! A SATIRICAL MASTERPIECE!” - Andrew O'Hehir, Salon

“Horrific but also funny! Line up outside New York’s Film Forum--and then other theatres nationwide!” - Stuart Klawans, The Nation

“Raucously inventive and completely out of its mind!” - Aaron Hillis, Premiere

“A bracing blast of old school surrealism!” - Dennis Lim, Village Voice

“The last true surrealist...provides the full Svankmajer flavor--as well as a comic metaphor for human existence itself!” - J. Hoberman, Village Voice

“Marvelous stop-motion animated sequences.” - Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

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