Czech Mate

The London Film Festival took on a European flavour last night as it hosted the Gala Premiere of Czech director Jan Sverak's WWII drama, Dark Blue World. Sverak, whose previous film Kolya won the Oscar for Best Foreign film in 1997, found it particularly fitting to be back in London's Odeon West End: "It's great because I had Kolya in the same cinema five years ago so it's nice to come back." Filmed in English and Czech, Dark Blue World tells the story of two Czechoslovakian pilots who flee Nazi occupied Europe to Britain in order to join the RAF and continue their fight against oppression. While in England their friendship is tested to the limit when they both fall for the same woman, Susan, played by Tara Fitzgerald "It's a very common type of role, especially as there has just been Pearl Harbor," Fitzgerald admitted to Empire Online, "so the most interesting thing for me was to work with Jan Sverak. I'd seen Kolya and that was incredible so I was thrilled that he wanted to work with me." Dark Blue World also highlights the real story of those Czech pilots who returned home after the war only to be imprisoned by the newly instated Communist regime which considered them a threat to the State. "It's quite well known story," Sverak told us, "but I have met some people who didn't realise there were so many Czechs in England during the Second World War. Or that they were so badly punished after coming back home." Among the film's stars present at last night's screening was British actress Anne Massey. Massey will soon be seen in Neil Labute's latest film Possession alongside Gwyneth Paltrow and Aaron Eckhart and was keen to tell us about it. "I play a vague relation of Gwyneth Patlrow's character. I'm the cripple in a wheelchair. I didn't have much to do in it but I played opposite Aaron and Gwyneth. Aaron is a wonderful actor. As for Neil: In the Company of Men, Your Friends and Neighbours - Wow!" Massey did reveal that Possession would not be as dark as those early films however. "It's based on the A.S. Byatt novel, so it's not really a Neil Labute script I mean, he's done the adaptation but it's not as dark."