From May 29-30, we organized in collaboration with the Karlovy Vary Region Film Office another in our series of location tours to film-friendly places. A brief explanation for those reading about on our regular activities for the first time: we take some artistice license when it comes to location tours. These are basically standard familiarization trips (“FAM trips”), but we focus on film-friendly locations. All of their owners or operators, whether state or private entities, want the locations to be filmed, and so they happily rent their interiors, exteriors and lands to audiovisual productions. We last visited the Karlovy Vary region, famous for its mineral water springs, spas and porcelain, in 2016. Although only three years have gone by, filmmaking tastes have since changed substantially. We don’t want to generalize, but there is a clear trend: ever more serials are being made, many of which are thematically dark; this necessitates finding new kinds of locations. And so location scouts are hunting for interiors with a prison feel, as well as near ruins and shuttered factory complexes, where they can make the most of the genius loci and readily depict a working production line, while saving on construction and decorative set costs.

That’s why we also visited the former Haas & Czjzek porcelain works, the first such factory in the Czech Republic. Over the past two centuries, it has risen from the ashes like a Phoenix several times, as new owners tried to reintroduce production of among the world's most respected, traditional products. The factory has now been closed for three years and, as you can see in the photos, the sorrowful setting is a seductive one for filmmakers.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so rather than describe every location in detail we’d like to encourage you to browse our photo gallery. If you’re interested in shooting in the Karlovy Vary Region or learning more about a location, please contact Karlovy Vary Region Film Office, Petr Židlický, zidlicky@zivykraj.cz, +420 736 650 129