Here’s the first photo from shooting at Barrandov Studio: Jojo has dinner with his mother and his imaginary friend Hitler. Principal photography on Jojo Rabbit started on May 28, and the international film crew and star-studded cast around the New Zealand director and screenwriter Taika Waititi will film in the Czech Republic until mid-July.
Roman Griffin Davis, Taika Waititi, Scarlett Johansson | Photo: Kimberley French
Taika Waititi – courageous, funny, down-to-earth, with a style all his own. Only a director like this could make films such as What We Do in the Shadows (2014), Hunt For The Wilderpeople (2016) or Thor: Ragnarok, a huge hit with audiences worldwide in 2017.
His current project Jojo Rabbit will certainly be another intriguing film, featuring a war story that parodies the Nazis and their senseless propaganda. Waititi himself plays the character of a childishly naive Hitler with undisguised humor.
The cast almost guarantees that the film will be popular with audiences: Scarlett Johansson as single mother Rosie who hides a young Jewish girl – even from her own son, an ardent member of the Hitler Youth, last year’s Academy Award® winner Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, 2017), and New Zealand actor Thomasin McKenzie (The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, 2014).
Waititi is assisted in the making of the film by seasoned collaborators from previous projects. “We’ve put together an incredible cast and I couldn’t be more excited to finally ridicule Nazis and their beliefs. This film is going to piss off a lot of racists and that makes me very happy,” said Waititi before filming began.
Czech Anglo Productions is responsible for ensuring everything runs smoothly for the crew on location and in studios in the Czech Republic over the course of 40 shooting days. Their past projects include The Zookeeper’s Wife (2017), Unlocked (2017) and the TV series The Musketeers (2014-2016).
The film is produced by Taika Waititi, Carthew Neal (Hunt for the Wilderpeople, 2016), and Chelsea Winstanley (What We Do in the Shadows, 2014), and is a Fox Searchlight Pictures project.