The filming of the Chinese film Somewhere Only We Know began on 23 June in Prague. It will be continuing on Prague locations until the middle of August. The film is originating under the production of the Chinese company Beijing Kaila Picture and under the direction of a Chinese superstar, director and actress Xu Jinglei.
The Czech co-producer of the film Somewhere Only We Know and also the company arranging the actual implementation of the project in the Czech Republic is Milk & Honey Pictures with offices in Prague and Los Angeles.
Respected local filmmakers are also participating in the project, including holders of the Czech Lion award, film architect Milan Býček and costume designer Katarína Hollá together with musical composer Varhan Orchestrovič Bauer. Fifty members of the film crew are from China, supplemented in various positions by 70 local film professionals and dozens more suppliers of related services.
The Chinese production will be spending about 60 million crowns in the Czech Republic and it qualified for an incentive in the amount of a 20% return from the expenses spent in the Czech Republic.
“The Czech Republic managed to attract the first large filming of a Chinese feature film for the first time in history primarily thanks to film incentives. In the first phase the Producer decided between Prague and Paris and they were also interested in other countries,” stated Ludmila Claussová, the head of the national Czech Film Commission. “We are glad that we ultimately managed to convince the producers that they can get the best locations, service and support here. The “cross-sector cooperation” with the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Peking and the CzechTourism agency, which cooperated with us to support the first inspection of Prague, also played a definite role in this,” added Claussová.
Beijing Kaila Picture is the production company of the director, screenwriter and actress Xu Jinglei, who is one of the most successful and most famous modern-day film stars in China. As an actress she has played in twenty films and in the role of director she has made five feature films to date, which have brought her several Chinese and international awards. She also writes the screenplays for her films, while in the case of the romantic film Somewhere Only We Know currently being filmed Xu Junglei invited one of the most popular current Chinese authors, novelist and screenwriter Wang Shua, who has become a Chinese cultural icon thanks to his prose.
The producers hope that the film will widely appeal to the Chinese public across all age categories. The romance genre is one of the most popular in China. Plus the film’s premiere in Chinese cinemas is planned for 14 February 2015 (Valentine’s Day), which will only underscore the romantic orientation of the film.
The main protagonist of the film is the Chinese girl Jin Ying, who leaves to study in Prague – the city where her grandmother Chen Lanxin once lived. While searching for signs of her grandmother’s Prague life, and especially her long-lost love, she befriends a young Chinese man, who has been living here for several years and who starts helping her uncover the past. Jin Ying is primarily looking for the long-lost love of her grandmother, Chen Lanxin. The current narration is accompanied by flashbacks to the more than 50-year-old tale. Jin Ying ultimately manages to find her grandmother’s old Czech boyfriend and meets him in one of the places where he used to meet with Chen Lanxin.
“Our film is not just a romance. It deals with themes such as family, coming of age and courage, though it also notes the differences between people and cultures,” stated producer Jiao Aimin. “In Prague we found absolutely everything we could desire for our story. Not just the architecture and locations, but also a very cultured environment full of music, literature and other forms of art. And from a production point of view a wonderfully organised film infrastructure and professional crew, of course. The start of the filming turned out wonderfully for us, and I am absolutely positive that the entire film will turn out the same and that Prague will make a huge impression on our Chinese audiences,” added Jiao Aimin.
The film Somewhere Only We Know will be shot in typical locations and corners of the Lesser Town and the Old Town and it presents Prague as a cultural city, where students and young people from various cultures of the world meet. “The film has huge potential to appeal to millions of Chinese viewers and it could motivate many of them to visit Prague and the Czech Republic,” stated František Reismüller, the Director of the Shanghai branch of CzechTourism. “A huge media wave has arisen around the film and director Xu Jinglei on the Chinese social networks. When the director announced the start of the filming on her profiles, several million people saw the information within a few hours,” stated Jiří Dužár, the Head Project Manager of CzechTourism for film tourism.
