Barrandov Studios
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| Subsidiary of Moravia Steel | |
| Industry | Motion pictures |
| Founded | 1921 |
| Headquarters | Prague-Barrandov, Czech Republic |
| Website | www.barrandov.cz |
Barrandov Studios is a famous set of film studios in Prague, Czech Republic. It is the largest film studio in the country and one of the largest in Europe.
Several of the movies filmed there won Oscars. At present the studios are often called the "European Hollywood" or "Hollywood of the East" due to increasing interest of western productions (such as the movies Mission Impossible, The Bourne Identity, Casino Royale, Prince Caspian, and many others). Noted director Roman Polanski claims Barrandov is the world's best studio.
The studios make an annual award of the Golden Trilobite (Zlatý Trilobit).
Czech film history is closely connected with that of Prague's entrepreneurial Havel family, and especially with the activities of the brothers Miloš Havel (1899–1968) and Václav Maria Havel (1897–1979) (Václav was the father of the Czech President of the same name).
In 1921 Miloš Havel created the A-B Joint Stock Company by merging his American Film distribution company with the Biografia film distributors.
At the beginning of the 1930s his brother Václav planned to build a luxurious residential complex on a hill five kilometers outside Prague. Miloš Havel had suggested that he include a modern film studio in the development. The area was to be called Barrandov after Joachim Barrande, the French geologist who had worked at the fossil-rich site in the 19th century. Still the Barrandov Rock has the plaque with Barrande's name.
Construction of the studio, based on designs by Max Urban, began on 28 November 1931 and was completed in 1933. Fourteen months later, Barrandov’s first Czech film, ‘Murder on Ostrovni Street’, was shot there. The volume of films shot at the studio increased rapidly. Barrandov had three hundred permanent employees, was making up to eighty films a year and had begun to attract foreign producers. It was the best-equipped studio in Central Europe and in the early years foreign production companies such as UFA, MGM and Paramount developed their own distribution systems in Czechoslovakia because of it.
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