Wrong Side Up

What is Wrong Side Up about? 

The film is about people trying to get along with each other, start relationships, and how such efforts sometimes leads to strange things happening. That is the bottom line of our story.

Wrong Side Up is quite different from your previous films.  How would you briefly describe it?

For the first time in my career my film deals with family relationships. Other than that, it is basically the same as my other films. Whoever likes my films, the kind of world I create, will definitely find similar themes in it – voyeurism, elevator music, and other similarities.

How did the idea to make the original play into a film come about?

It was Jiri Bartoska’s idea. Then producer Pavel Strnad got interested in it. I myself approached the thing rather as a kind of offer from the producer.

What inspired you when you were writing the screenplay? Did real people inspire you? 

The characters in my films are always the same, more or less. But this time they are more realistic. I tried to set the film in a specific environment, a factory, actually an airport that is somehow similar to a factory. So for the first time in my films there is a character that lives in a real environment and has a real job.

Did the environment of an airport come to your mind as the first idea or did you think about other places as well?

I thought about various environments as I was trying to figure out   what kind of job the main character should have, for example a fireworks designer. Finally I chose cargo and the airport because I like the distinct theme of packages. Besides that, an airport itself really fascinates me.

Do you write screenplays on your own or do you need to communicate your work, discuss it with others, and get feedback from them while working on it?  

I love to talk about the screenplay with people but I can’t write it together with another person. Talking to someone about the screenplay is the best for me.

How about the dialogue?

I exaggerated the dialog on purpose so it would help us check the potential of different actors at the auditions. But then I couldn’t go back and correct the exaggerations so we ended up with a lot of lengthy sections of dialogue that we had to shorten with the editor.

How did you choose the actors? Did you know from the very beginning which actors you would keep out of the theatre version and which roles you would recast?

The four actors Trojan, Krobot, Diviskova, and Bartoska were decided from the beginning of writing the screenplay. I had a moment of doubt about casting Bartoska, as I really wanted to cast Karel Hermanek. In the end I found a different role for him.

Why did you focus on Karel Hermanek?

I had been interested in casting him for a long time. He is an outstanding actor. I was thinking what role he would fit into. I even offered the role of George to him at the theater. But he refused the role due to his previous commitments.

How did you come to the idea to cast the young Slovak actress Zuzana Sulajova and the other female characters?

Other than the role of the mother the most difficult thing for me was to cast all the female roles including the lead. I tried a lot of different young actresses and finally the auditions led to the current casting, including the role of Jana played by the Slovak actress Zuzana Sulajova. I believe having such great actors in the film is one of its true assets. I find Zuzana Bydzovska a brilliant actress so I cast her as Alice after I saw her in the role of Alice in the play Perfect Days by Alice Nellis.  I needed someone as outstanding as Jiri Bartoska next to her.

You’ve probably made a new film star – Miroslav Krobot. At his age this doesn’t happen very often – how did it occur to you to cast him?

He is an experienced observer. He has observed a lot and is really charismatic, a natural talent, which works great in the film. If the role were bigger, he would have to start acting. The minimalist style wouldn’t do the job. Anyway, I believe it works perfectly the way it is in the film and I fully support him.

When it comes to other members of the crew – the cameraman, sound editor, costume designer, production designer, etc., do you work with a fixed team or do you choose specific professionals according to the kind of film?

Most of them are people I worked with on the previous films. I made all my films with editor David Charap and cameraman Miro Gabor. Anyway, this time I tried a new production designer Ondrej Nekvasil. I liked his work in Indianske Leto, and in other films, too.  I collaborated with costume designer Martin Chocholousek  on a theatre play, where he worked as a scene designer and actually he was someone who introduced me to the secrets of theatre space.