Czech director accused of xenophobia threatens critic with violence

News server iHNED.cz reports that Czech Radio will be broadcasting a segment of its "Zaostřeno" ("In Focus") program this Saturday in which director Filip Renč tells Kamil Fila, a film critic with the RESPEKT weekly, that he’d like to "break his jaw". Renč did not like Fila’s critique of the way Renč depicts foreigners in the television serial "Sanitka 2" ("Ambulance 2").   

Czech Radio management had to decide whether to air the program and in what form. Renč, who found the criticism of his serial intolerable, objected to the fact that the program would be edited. 

At first the director reportedly wanted the full version of the program, including his insults and threats, to be broadcast. The program is usually only 20 minutes long, while the full taping lasted 40 minutes.

The tape-recorded argument between Fila and Renč culminates in Renč calling Fila an "idiot" and saying that if he were there in the studio he would "break his jaw". According to iHNED.cz, Renč ultimately demanded the program not be broadcast.   

"That’s normal for an authorization. I simply disagree with the interview. It was an unpleasant interview for me, and I believe it would also be unpleasant for listeners, so I don’t want it broadcast," Renč said.

Renč was invited on the program because some scenes in the serial have prompted very divergent responses from the public. In one such scene, the character of a Muslim man stabs the character of a doctor who is treating the Muslim man’s wife.   

"What I said was that it was dramaturgic nonsense, there was no reason to have that in the screenplay. The Muslim characters just turn up every once in while and then disappear, they aren’t characters that run through the whole plot. It’s also terribly filmed, because the man doesn’t speak either Arabic or English, but Czech with a weird accent. The generic music is also completely unnecessary," Fila said when criticizing Renč’s negative depiction of Muslims. 

Renč believes Fila’s critique was completely absurd and has reiterated that he is "not responsible" for the scenes critiqued, as he filmed them according to Jiří Hubač’s screenplay. "I was also really bothered by the way the moderator conducted the interview. Mr Fila’s opinions and questions were totally irrelevant and stupid, I don’t want an interview like that broadcast. It was a stupid interview at a stupid moment with stupid questions and my own stupid answers," said Renč.   

The program was to have been broadcast last Saturday, but Czech Radio management canceled it and, after several consultations, ultimately decided not to meet any of Renč’s demands. An edited version of the program will therefore be broadcast; the full-length recording of the interview will not be made available.

The incident is not the first time that Renč has responded to criticism of his serial in a vulgar way. Last November, when the serial was criticized for its racist, unrealistic depiction of Romani people, Renč called Roma rights advocate Klára Samková a "gypsy cow".