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PRODUCTION / FUNDING Czech Republic / Slovakia

Petr Hátle’s Mr. and Mrs. Stodola to map the perverted romance of a pair of serial killers

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- The Czech documentarian is working on his feature-length fiction debut, a true-crime biopic about a notorious Czech husband and wife who terrorised elderly citizens

Petr Hátle’s Mr. and Mrs. Stodola to map the perverted romance of a pair of serial killers
Jan Hájek and Julie Žáčková in Mr. and Mrs. Stodola (© nutprodukce)

Following up on the existential biopic I, Olga Hepnarová [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
interview: Tomáš Weinreb, Petr Kazda
film profile
]
, about one of Czechoslovakia’s most notorious mass murderers, another case of appalling killings is getting the big-screen treatment. A killing spree targeting elderly citizens occurred in a sleepy Czech hamlet in the early 2000s, and in 2003, a seemingly ordinary husband and wife were revealed to be the culprits.

Now, emerging Czech documentarian Petr Hátle (The Great Night) has been working on a project about the killers, Dana and Jaroslav Stodola, initially intending it to be a documentary film. The film’s producer, Tomáš Hrubý, of nutprodukce, said that the central couple’s story arc started emerging and “revealed some atypical power dynamics between them”, which prompted the pivot to fiction filmmaking. Mr. and Mrs. Stodola [+see also:
film review
interview: Petr Hátle
film profile
]
thus marks Hátle’s feature-length fiction debut.

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The movie follows the working-class twosome (played by Jan Hájek and Julie Žáčková), who cannot find steady employment and soon become financially deprived. The wife instructs the husband to rob their elderly neighbour; however, Jaroslav underestimates the situation, and the petty burglary turns into robbery and murder. As investigators do not seem to be paying much attention to the incident, the couple come up with their modus operandi for targeting pensioners in the isolated village.

While the film centres on the pair, the story is perceived from Jaroslav’s perspective, as he becomes susceptible to the manipulation of his wife. Dana becomes intoxicated by the power she thinks she can wield over another human being, and the feeling fuels yet more bloodlust. Hátle, who wrote the script himself, consulted the investigator’s files; however, he filled in the blanks in their personal life with the most plausible explanations behind the string of senseless murders.

Similarly to the award-winning existential drama I, Olga Hepnarová, Mr. and Mrs. Stodola won’t be your average true-crime biopic, purely reconstructing the evil deeds themselves. The director intends to show the paper-thin line between the normal and the abnormal, and how a minor offence can snowball and take on monstrous dimensions. The drama will show evil in its most mundane form, with echoes of Michael Haneke’s brand of cinema, although the director noted that he is not intending to tread the path of exploitation. The film will apparently not feature a single drop of blood, and will instead focus on the psychological dimension.

The first clapperboard slammed in December 2021, and production will last until June 2022. Hrubý confirmed to Cineuropa that the editing would take place until the end of 2022, with the final cut set to be finished in February 2023. DoP Prokop Souček, who lensed Hátle’s award-winning first feature-length documentary, The Great Night, shot Mr. and Mrs. Stodola using a bare minimum of lighting equipment, working mostly with natural light.

Mr. and Mrs. Stodola is a two-country co-production between the Czech Republic (Tomáš Hrubý, of nutprodukce) and Slovakia (Jakub Viktorín, of nutprodukce’s nutprodukcia offshoot). Both national funding bodies, the Czech Film Fund and the Slovak Audiovisual Fund, supported the film, and Czech Television is serving as a co-producer. A theatrical release in both countries has already been secured. The rights for the remaining territories are still available. Mr. and Mrs. Stodola does not yet have a sales agent.

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