A new HBO feature film about the 1990s Oslo Peace Accords, produced by Steven Spielberg, is currently filming in Prague with its shoot scheduled to last through the end of the year. It began production in mid-October, with complications brought on by the recent COVID-19 epidemic in the Czech Republic.
Oslo, based on J. T. Rogers’ Tony Award-winning play, charts the true story of Norwegian husband-and-wife diplomats Mona Juul and Terje Rød-Larsen, whose efforts led to the breakthrough negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat in 1993.
In Oslo, Ruth Wilson (Showtime’s The Affair, How to Talk to Girls at Parties) stars as Juul opposite Andrew Scott (1917, Moriarty on BBC’s Sherlock) as her husband. Wilson and Scott also co-star in the HBO series His Dark Materials.
Tony Award winner Bartlett Sher, who directed the play on Broadway, will make his feature film debut with the new project.
Spielberg’s longtime cameraman Janusz Kamiński, who won Oscars for Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan and most recently shot West Side Story for the director, is behind the camera for Oslo.
The production is primarily based in Prague, which will presumably fill in for the Norwegian capital and potentially locations in Israel and Palestine. A brief shoot for Oslo also took place in Dubrovnik late last month.
In addition to Spielberg, Marc Platt (La La Land), Kristie Macosko Krieger (The Post) and David Litvak (Vox Lux) serve as producers on the new HBO film.
Last week, Wilson told Deadline that the entire cast and crew were in a two-week quarantine in Prague due to COVID-19, though she did not reveal the project she was working on at the time.
“On this job, I’m out here [in Prague] now, and there’s more protocols, weirdly, and we’re being tested more regularly, but that probably results in more positive tests,” the actress said.
“So we’ve had to quarantine and freeze filming for two weeks while we’re all in quarantine. So that’s a huge expense for the production. It also means that our first day on set is our first day out of quarantine. I can’t imagine all those actors who have been caged up in a hotel room heading for a first day on set. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
The film also stars Salim Dau, Waleed Zuaiter, Jeff Wilbusch, Igal Naor, Dov Glickman, Rotem Keinan, Itzik Cohen, Tobias Zilliacus and Sasson Gabai, according to Deadline.
HBO also released a documentary on the same subject, Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan’s The Oslo Accords, in 2018.
Oslo is slated to be released on HBO platforms in 2021.
Lead photo: Ruth Wilson via Wikimedia / Mingle MediaTV; Andrew Scott via Wikimedia / Paulae
