Work starts on Palach film to premiere 50 years after invasion

Shooting on a new Czech film about Jan Palach is due to begin on Thursday. The movie will focus on the final months in the life of the student who set himself on fire in central Prague in January 1969 in protest at societal apathy in the wake of the Soviet invasion of the previous August.

The film has been written by one-time Charter 77 spokesperson Eva Kantůrková and will be directed by Robert Sedláček. If all goes according to plan, it will receive its premiere on August 21 next year, the 50th anniversary of the arrival of Soviet tanks in the then Czechoslovakia.