One of the most visually striking dramas I’ve recently seen out of New Directors/New Films is Ivan Ostrochovsky’s Servants, which initially made its debut at the Berlinale back in 2020. Now set for a release this month on February 25 via Film Movement, we’re pleased to debut the exclusive trailer for the black-and-white drama set in Czechoslovakia, 1980, a under totalitarian Communist regime. Following two novitiates in a seminary who must make difficult choices, Ostrochovsky creates a strong atmosphere of activism amidst paranoia.
Mark Asch said his New Directors/New Films review, “The success of Paweł Pawlikowski’s Ida and Cold War has revealed, among arthouse audiences, a heretofore unimagined ravenous hunger for Eastern Bloc period dramas of Catholic conviction and political compulsion, shot in academy ratio and shimmery digital grayscale. Thus Servants, a hushed drama about underground activism, secret police, fear and trembling at a seminary in the former Czechoslovakia.”
See the exclusive trailer below.
Servants opens in Virtual Cinemas and digitally on February 25, 2022.