WEEK IN WOMEN: Agnieszka Holland’s FRANZ opens in US Cinemas – Brandy McDonnell reports
Agnieszka Holland’s Franz, a portrait of legendary writer Franz Kafka, who remains celebrated worldwide for his books, short stories, fables and aphorisms, is bowing in theaters on Aug. 21.
Billed as Holland’s most ambitious project to date, her biopic of the iconic 20th-century Czech writer had its world premiere last year at the 50th Toronto International Film Festival. It was nominated for a Golden Seashell at the 2025 San Sebastián International Film Festival in Spain, and it became Poland’s official entry to the 98th Academy Awards.
For six decades, Holland has remained one of the most compelling filmmakers in global cinema. She was born in Warsaw in 1948 and made her first feature film, Provincial Actors, in 1978. It won the International Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1980. Holland’s prolific career has been shaped in part by international politics and by her personal activism and dissidence. Her films have consistently garnered acclaim and awards.
At the 2017 Berlin International Film Festival. she received the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize for her crime thriller Spoor (Pokot), and her migrant drama Green Border won the Special Jury Prize at the 2023 Venice International Film Festival.
In between, Holland was named the first woman president of the European Film Academy in 2020. She served in that role until 2024, when she was succeeded by French actress Juliette Binoche.
Earlier this year, Holland was presented with the international Honorary Dragon Award at Sweden’s Göteborg Film Festival, where she also screened em>Franz.
Conceived as a “kaleidoscopic mosaic,” Franz toggles between the past and present to study the imprint Kafka (played by German actor Idan Weiss) left on the world, from his birth in 19th-century Prague to his death in post-World War I Vienna.
Written by Marek Epstein, Franz co-stars Peter Kurth, Jenovéfa Boková and Ivan Trojan. The biopic is produced by Šárka Cimbalová and Holland, with co-producers Uwe Schott, Jorgo Narjes, Marcin Wierzchosławski and Alicja Jagodzińska. Continue reading on THE WEEK IN WOMEN.
