I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND

**Ends Thursday, October 23rd**

“Funny, vivacious and profound … an utter delight.” - Empire Magazine

"Why can’t Americans make comedies as playful but serious as Jiri Menzel’s I Served the King of England?" - David Edelstein, NEW YORK MAGAZINE

"A beguiling, bigger-than-life black comedy ... a virtual primer on the unique mixture of self-deprecating dark humor and personal tragedy that has been the Czech cinema's stock-in-trade since their celebrated 1960s New Wave." - VARIETY

I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND marks the triumphant return of director Jirí Menzel, master filmmaker of the Czech New Wave, and winner of the 1968 Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award for CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS.
Based on the best-selling book by celebrated Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal, and winner of the Critics' Award at the Berlin Film Festival, this hugely entertaining crowd-pleaser follows a diminutive train-station sausage seller over the course of four decades on his journey to bus boy and millionaire hotelier, before ending up as a disgraced Nazi collaborator.
Jan Dít¡e - played with just the right note of cheeky innocence by Bulgarian actor Ivan Barnev - is an ambitious go-getter whose only wish in life is to become stinking rich. Landing a job at a luxurious Prague hotel in the 1930s, Dít¡e stealthily climbs the career ladder and happily indulges in the hedonism that surrounds him. This is a world where beautiful women gladly sprawl nude on a rotating centerpiece for the enjoyment of wealthy diners, and even though Dít¡e is technically still a servant, he enjoys his fair share of the spoils. As World War II approaches and the Germans occupy Czech lands, Dít¡e falls in love with Líza, a propaganda-spouting Nazi (Julia Jentsch, last seen doing just the opposite in Sophie Scholl) who only agrees to bed Dít¡e when she learns he has German blood. Scorned by his countrymen for marrying the enemy, Dít¡e is all but oblivious to the politics that surround him, even as he is hired to impregnate Teutonic goddesses in an Aryan breeding center.