The Rolling Stones have inspired plenty of films over the years — among them, Martin Scorsese’s concert film Shine a Light (2008) and the Maysles Brothers’ Gimme Shelter (1970), which documented the chaos of the band’s 1969 U.S. tour and its bloody culmination at Altamont. Now a Czech filmmaker is adding a very different chapter to that canon.
Writer-director Tomáš Hodan is developing The Stones Are Rolling to Prague (Kameny se valí do Prahy), a period comedy built around one of the most unlikely and celebrated concerts in post-Communist history. Hodan, known for the 2022 historical drama The Last Race and Film Adventurer Karel Zeman, pitched the project Monday at the second edition of the KVIFF Central Stage showcase during Karlovy Vary International Film Festival‘s Industry Days, a showcase dedicated to features from established directors with strong festival pedigrees.
Set in the spring of 1990, just after the Velvet Revolution, the film follows four friends who once organized underground concerts of banned bands during the Communist era. Now, with the country suspended between euphoria and chaos, they receive an offer from President Václav Havel they can’t refuse: organize a Rolling Stones concert in Czechoslovakia.
“A wild ride begins – translating the band’s rider with dictionaries, sending faxes from the President’s office, and scraping together the unprecedented sum of $1 million,” reads a synopsis. “Incredibly, on Aug. 18, 1990, Mick Jagger makes his entrance at Strahov Stadium and shouts: ‘Ahoj Praha!’ 100,000 rock fans burst into tears of joy. A punk comedy based on a true story about fighting for freedom.”
The producers of the film are Jakub Kraus, Martin Palán and Tibor Búza, with Bontonfilm Studios serving as the production company. The cinematographer is Jan Baset Střítežský. The cast features Petr Uhlík, Jan Nedbal, Josef Trojan and Matyáš Řezníček, and the film will be in three languages: Czech, Slovak and English. What the project is missing includes additional financing, international distribution and an international sales agent.
The Stones Are Rolling to Prague is “a loser comedy, because it’s about four guys who have only desire, but they have no experience, they don’t speak English, they don’t have a fax machine,” Hodan told the KVIFF Industry Days crowd. “It’s a loser comedy about a very special time in our history, about the start of freedom after 40 years of communism.”
The filmmaker acknowledged that feature comedies have faced challenges in the Czech Republic, but emphasized: “I really wanted to make a comedy based on a true story.”
As for the soundtrack, the Stones will be present but won’t dominate. “Because [the film] is not about the Rolling Stones [as much as] the four guys who organized concerts in the communist era, and now they are organizing a Rolling Stones concert,” explained producer Kraus. Underground music of the era will play an equally significant role.
Hodan closed with the moment the whole film builds toward. “It was a miracle to the end, because no one believed they would see Mick Jagger any time soon,” he said. “And when Mick Jagger came to the stage, and Keith Richards started to play ‘Start Me Up,’ that was a miracle for Czechoslovakia.”
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