Oscar winners Jeremy Irons and Vanessa Redgrave, along with screen legend Michael York, have joined the voice cast of The Crystal Planet, an animated sci-fi adventure backed by leading Czech and Central European producers, reports Variety. The film, now being sold internationally at the Cannes Film Market by Sola Media, is a Czech co-production involving Prague-based Alkay Animation and Slovakia’s BFilm.
Directed by Croatian filmmaker Arsen Anton Ostojic, The Crystal Planet is based on an original screenplay by the late Dušan Vukotić, , whose short film Surogat (Ersatz), won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short for 1961. Vukotić died in 1998.
The story centers on Rea, an 11-year-old girl who has just moved to a colony on a remote planet. There, she discovers a mysterious animal cub and joins forces with her new friend Andy to protect it from the planet’s factory-owning villain — who plans to turn it into a robotic prototype.
Irons will lend his voice to Governor Mordokan, a conflicted antagonist who is both a ruthless industrialist and a grieving father.
“Mordokan is a complex character,” Irons said, “but his internal grief puts at risk his new planet and all the colorful animals who live there.” Redgrave voices The Matriarch, while York takes on the role of The Patriarch, members of an ancient subterranean species of the planet.
Ostojic, best known for live-action features, said the film has been a long-gestating passion project.
“My late professor, the Oscar-winner Dušan Vukotić, shared a draft of the script with me back in the ‘90s,” he told Variety. “Years later, after inheriting the rights, I hesitated — unsure I could meet the challenge. But once I partnered with Alkay Animation Prague and its visionary producer Petr Horák, I found the path forward.”
The film is animated under the supervision of Czech animator Jakub Pištecký, whose credits as a digital effects artists with Industrial Light & Magic include Rango, Pirates of the Caribbean, and The Avengers.
Production companies behind The Crystal Planet include Filmosaurus Rex, BFilm, and Alkay Animation Prague, the Czech studio behind My Sunny Maad, which won the Jury Prize at Annecy and received a Golden Globe nomination.
The Crystal Planet also carries a strong ecological message aimed at younger viewers. “It’s a creatively bold film that makes the most of its resources,” said Solveig Langeland of Sola Media. “Driven by big ideas, exceptional talent, and an Oscar-winning cast, it’s perfect for the global family market.”
