Operation Monaco

The story has a dramatic plot: the year is 1948. In the border zone between Bratislava and Berg, Austria, border guards arrest a young man. He is accused of attempting to cross the state border illegally. During interrogation, it emerges that his father is the administrator at the French consulate in Bratislava. Instead of facing charges and a long prison sentence, the young man and his father sign an agreement to cooperate with the State Security Service. Both are to obtain information and collect documents from the consulate’s safe. These documents (such as asylum applications) will then serve as evidence of „espionage activities“ by the French consulate. A film crew is sent to Bratislava from Prague. In reality, however, it is a group of StB agents who, with the help of recruited agents (the administrator and his son), collect diplomatic mail from the consular safe and document its contents. As a result of this operation, Czechoslovak citizens and consulate employees are arrested: consulate secretary Jiří Dlouhý, resistance fighters and members of the secret organization Obrana národa (Defense of the Nation) – Vladimír Velecký, Karel Koch, and member of the Czechoslovak State Council in London Viliam Radakovič. After exhausting torture, Jiří Dlouhý and Vladimír Velecký are executed on November 8, 1951. The other accused are sentenced to life imprisonment. French consul Étienne Manac’h (1910-1992) and his deputy Michelot manage to leave the country at the last minute and escape arrest. The script for this docudrama was based on available archival materials, photographs, and historical sources.

DIRECTOR Dušan Trančík
SCREENWRITER Dušan Trančík
D.O.P. Michal Černý
EDITOR Peter Harum
SOUND Tomáš Kubec
PRODUCERS Viktor Schwarcz, Zuzana Mistríková, Arkaitz Basterra Zalbide
FEATURING Bérénice Manac’h, Antoine Marès, Pavel Kosatík, Jerguš Sivoš, Matej Medvecký, Jana Horváthová-Schillerová
CAST Radek Valenta, Václav Rašilov, Márk Mezőszállási, Jiří Ployhar, Jaroslav Sypal, Peter Gábor, Václav Švec, Kryštof Grygar
i/o post data management, online, grading, VFX, DCP mastering

(c) 2025

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