GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY

Jiří Pačinek's Glassworks realized an extraordinary order for a film production. The film itself is presented by Netflixer or CSFD. But below we present the story through the eyes of the glassmakers as told by David Sobotka, the artistic director of Jiří Pachinko's glassworks. Read how Czech glass made it to Netflix.

According to the opinion of many people from the film industry and beyond, such a project comes only once or twice in a professional lifetime and may leave "only" a few brief moments of "fame", a few fading photographs, a whole series of beautiful memories. But it can also bring other similar milestones, fundamentally influence the course of things to come, but most importantly stand for new human and professional friendships and cooperation...

All this happened to Jiří Pachinko and David Sobotka during an unexpected morning phone call last year, when they were approached by a leading American film production company, as if by chance, and asked to consider making glass for the sets of a film currently being shot somewhere in Greece and Croatia. At first hearing, this is not a strange thing, since Jiří Pačinek has already done several similar projects, and so has David Sobotka, who has participated as a glass supervisor in several film projects of domestic and foreign production during his thirty years in glass...

But when the names of the actors who will be featured in the film were announced, even they were breathless and wary, as Daniel Craig, Kate Hudson, and David Bautista are currently among the very top of the world's acting elite.

Other surprises did not wait long, because as we know, in film and filming preparation, the steps normally happen in the mode of days, hours, minutes and quite often seconds...

The really big moment was the arrival of one of the most important American film designers, John Dexter, who appeared one day in July at Jiří Pačink's glassworks in Kunratice near Cvikov and brought a bit of the atmosphere of Hollywood. The man who is, for example, a long-time collaborator of the world icon of film and art director Tim Burton, and as a production designer behind such film gems as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, or Sleepy Hollow... For this modest gentleman, who later told us his stories of working with world film icons in between jobs, it was actually the very first time he found himself in a glassworks, at the smelter, within reach of a hot furnace and in the company of glassmakers who, despite not being able to speak fluent English, took John in immediately and he was happier every day. Literally like a little boy at his best, picking up a glass blower and trying to blow a hot bubble for the first time. Incidentally, John Dexter also went through this glass baptism early on and I still remember what a tremendous experience it was for him.