‘Carnival Row’: Amazon Wraps Marathon Czech Republic Shoot For Second Season, Country Hails Most Lucrative Production

Andreas Wiseman
·3 min read

Amazon’s second season of Carnival Row has wrapped the two weeks of its remaining filming in the Czech Republic under strict coronavirus protocols.

The Czech Film Commission said today that the marathon shoot, which began last November but was interrupted in March by the spread of COVID-19, is the country’s “most financially beneficial foreign production since the introduction of production incentives.”

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The Emmy-nominated neo-Victorian fantasy series, starring Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne, is a joint venture between Amazon Studios and Legendary Television.

“Carnival Row represents the most amount that foreign filmmakers have ever spent in the Czech Republic and has earned a significant incentive for both seasons filmed,” said Helena Bezděk Fraňková, director of the Czech Film Fund. “Bear in mind that this is a direct financial injection into the Czech economy, of which more than 60% goes to non-film SMEs in not only the fields of construction, real estate, hospitality and catering, tourism and transport, but also healthcare, energy, fashion and cosmetics, financial and legal services, and the like. These businesses are often also regional suppliers, not just based in Prague.”

The second series began filming on November 11, 2019, with plans to spend multiple shooting days on locations and in studios. In addition to Prague and Barrandov Studios, it was filmed in Liberec and at the Sychrov chateau, in Doksany, Nelahozeves, Tousen and Libochovice.

“Around 900 people worked on the production, of which only about 10% were foreign crew members. Of this number, 400 were craftspeople employed in the construction of the complicated sets that went up at Barrandov Studios. The first and second seasons spent a total of three years at Czech locations, and pre-production began as far back as 2017,” added the head of the Czech Film Commission Pavlína Žipková.

The two series combined make Carnival Row “the longest and most demanding project shot in the Czech Republic so far”, according to the Czech Film Commission.

Czech audiovisual production started back up in May. Projects that headed back into pre-production over the summer included Wheel of Time (Amazon Studios), The Falcon And The Winter Soldier (Marvel Studios), the third season of Haunted (Netflix), and Das Boot (Bavaria Fiction), as well feature Transatlantic 473 (Netflix). The European co-productions Margrete – Queen of The North, the family film Hui Buh (Constantin Film), and the sequel to Zurich Krimi (ARD), are now finished.

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