Thelma, a supernatural thriller from acclaimed director Joachim Trier (Oslo, August 31st) that has been selected as Norway’s official submission to next year’s Oscars, had its Prague premiere earlier this month courtesy of the Mezipatra Queer Film Festival.
If you missed the Thelma during the Mezipatra festival, it will be released throughout the Czech Republic from December 14.
Unfortunately for non-Czech speakers, however, the general release of Thelma in Prague will be in Norwegian with only Czech subtitles.
But thanks to Mezipatra, distributor Aerofilms, and Prague 10 cinema Kino Pilotů, the movie will be having a one-night-only screening with English subtitles next Monday, December 4, at 19:30 (note: a subsequent screening at 20:00 will contain only Czech subtitles.)
Thelma, which charts the story of a young woman whose sexual awakening coincides with a supernatural one, has been hailed by many critics as one of the best films of the year.
The movie is “tense, thoughtful, and beautifully composed,” writes Justin Chang for the Los Angeles Times.
“You could read Thelma as a saga of Sapphic liberation, a fiery critique of religious patriarchy or perhaps yet another superhero’s traumatic origin story.”
While the movie deals with supernatural elements, it also tells a sensitive LGBTQ coming out story, an unusual combination for the genre that director Trier addressed in a recent interview with slashfilm.
“Most movies that are about LGBTQ experiences or situations are about guys. But in genre cinema, there is the complete other side of the spectrum. There is the cliche of the lesbian vampire film from Italy in the ’70s, this schlocky kind of thing.
“We realized we could try to do a more modern empowerment story that was dealing with that subject and that theme that we felt is important in this day and age. In our society, both in American and in Norway, there is…it’s easy to live in the city and think that there’s no problem coming out and that everyone’s a liberal, but that’s not the case.”
Thelma will compete for a Best Foreign Language Film nomination to next year’s Academy Awards alongside movies like the Czech Republic’s Ice Mother and France’s Cannes-honored BPM, which also screened in Prague during the Mezipatra festival.
Tickets to the December 4 screening at Kino Pilotů can be purchased from the cinema box office (120 CZK) or booked by phone (+420 723 985 986) or e-mail (kinopilotu@mimesis.cz). More information about the event can be found via Facebook.
