Founding
Czech film history is closely connected with that of Prague’s entrepreneurial Havel family, and especially with the activities of the brothers Miloš Havel (1899-1968) and Václav Havel (1897-1979) (Václav was the father of the Czech President of the same name).
In 1921 Miloš Havel created the A-B Joint Stock Company by merging his American Film distribution company with the Biografia film distributors.
At the beginning of the 1930s his brother Václav planned to build a luxurious residential complex on a hill five kilometers outside Prague. Miloš Havel had suggested that he include a modern film studio in the development. The area was to be called Barrandov after Joachim Barrande, the French geologist who had worked at the site in the 19th century.
Construction of the studio, based on designs by Max Urban, began on 28 November 1931 and was completed in 1933. Fourteen months later, Barrandov’s first Czech film, ‘Murder on Ostrovni Street’, was shot there. The volume of films shot at the studio increased rapidly. Barrandov had three hundred permanent employees, was making up to eighty films a year and had begun to attract foreign producers. It was the best-equipped studio in Central Europe and in the early years foreign production companies such as UFA, MGM and Paramount developed their own distribution systems in Czechoslovakia because of it.
During the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany during World War II (1940-1945) major additions were made to the studio’s facilities. Seeking to make Barrandov an equal to the major film studios in Berlin and Munich, the Nazis drew up plans for three large interconnecting stages. Construction work started in 1941 but the final stage was not completed until early 1945. These three huge stages (with more than 37,000 square feet (3,400 m2) of shooting space) still form the main attraction of the studios to film-makers throughout the world.
Shortly after the War, Barrandov and its smaller sister studio facility at Hostivař were nationalized and remained under State ownership until the beginning of the 1990s. During this time, Barrandov’s impressive film laboratories were constructed, as was a special effects stage with a back projection tunnel and a water tank equipped for under-water shooting.
Read more about this topic: Barrandov Studios
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