FRANZ
Special Features: Special Presentation | 2026 Oscar® Selection, Poland | Post-screening reception sponsored by the Embassy of Poland on Dec. 10
Agnieszka Holland delves into the strange-but-true life story of Franz Kafka, the son of a bourgeois Jewish Prague family, who, rather than follow in his father’s footsteps as a merchant, wrote some of the early 20th century’s most surreal short stories and novels, modern fables whose absurdities described the horrors of the day — and perhaps anticipated those to come. Brilliantly played by Idan Weiss, Kafka comes to life as an obsessive writer, gripped by his ideas and craft, whose professional life (he worked full-time in an insurance office, which he hated) and personal relationships inevitably suffered as a result. Nonetheless, as Holland skillfully shows us, those fraught relationships — with his blustering, domineering father, Hermann (Peter Kurth); his favorite sister, Ottla (Katharina Stark); his best friend, supporter and brothel-going buddy, Max Brod (Sebastian Schwarz); and his long-suffering, eternally disappointed fiancée, Felice Bauer (Carol Schuler) — were integral to his work in a myriad of ways. Kafka was little known when he died of tuberculosis in 1924 at the age of 40, having at that time only published a few stories and the novella “The Metamorphosis.” But his voluminous unpublished work was saved from oblivion by Brod, leading to posthumous acclaim and literary canonization, as well as kitschy Prague tourist attractions and product licensing, which Holland’s film also delights in showing us — adding one final surreal touch to the legacy of this one-of-a-kind artist. –Todd Hitchcock
Official Selection, 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. DIR/PROD Agnieszka Holland; SCR Marek Epstein; PROD Sarka Cimbalova. Czech Republic/Poland/Germany/France/Turkey, 2025, color, 127 min. In German and Czech with English subtitles. NOT RATED
Run Time: 127 Minutes
Opening Date: Wednesday, December 10, 2025
Genre: Biography, drama
Reception