Karel Čapek’s famous novel The War with the Newts was made into a film

He will introduce himself in the main role Jaroslav Dušek in the character of Captain Vantoch. He portrayed Andy the movie salamander Petr Čtvrtníček. He portrays the third key character, the international businessman and manufacturer GH Bondy Robert Nebrensky. Given his business acumen, Bondy sees salamanders as a phenomenon that will open unprecedented possibilities for humanity, while their discoverer, Vantoch, sees them as seemingly cute and defenseless creatures, useful for fishing for pearls and teaches them to speak or use various human tools. And it is thanks to Vantoch’s “innocent friendship” with salamanders and Bondy’s commercial vision of the world that a local discovery becomes a global instrument of destruction.

Many Slovak actors also played in the film, such as Marko Igonda, Csongor Kassai, Ivo Gogál, Marián Labuda Jr., Róbert Jakab, Milan Mikulčík, Anna Jakab Rakovskáalso Croatian actors Petar Cvirn and Sven Jakir.

Insight, stunning visuals and humor will be the common denominators of the currently completed full-length partially animated film directed by Aurel Klimt. The creators want to bring Čapko’s vast novel closer to the general public in an attractive and visually playful form.

War with salamanders is filmed as the so-called a combined film in which a real environment and live acting intertwine with animation, and all of this is united by a unified artistic styling. “We can’t compete with Avatar, but we can make a virtue out of necessity, which was a natural path for me, also because that playfulness and illusion is intrinsic to animation” says director Aurel Klimt and adds: “The content is so strong that even Čapek understood that humor must be included in this novel. The position is ideal and I also try to keep the humor in the film”. Part of the film will be created by flat animation, in which the characters will be assembled from photos of the actors and computer-generated images of salamanders, the environment and decorations from period photos of reality artistically completed and drawn by the renowned Slovak artist and scenographer František Lipták. It is these acknowledged additions that will be an important part of the visual aspect of the film.

Čapek was inspired for his work by a species of giant salamander, which, with its length of up to 180 centimeters, is the largest amphibian in the world. The movie character Andy the newt was created by a combination of part of the transferred acting and facial expressions from a real image created by the actor Peter Čtvrtníček, the other newts will be created using 3D computer graphics. Thanks to this, the interplay of salamanders with characters played by live actors seems completely natural.

A demo in the gimmick post-production phase:

The main scene of the film, named in the book as Devil Bay somewhere in the Pacific, became a small peaceful Croatian island of Susak. In Slovakia, it was filmed in the spas in Trenčianske Teplice av Bratislava in the historical building of the Comenius University and in the building of the Main Post Office. A large part of the film was filmed in the Hexar studio in Chrášťany pri Prague.

He is the cinematographer of the film Radek Loukotawhich with the director Aurelom Klimtom cooperates for a long time. The author of the film music is a Slovak composer, conductor and pianist Vladimir Martinka.

A war with salamanders begins produced by Aurel Klimt’s Studio Zvon and Rudolf Biermann’s In Film Praha. The film is a Czech-Slovak-Croatian co-production.

Co-producers are: Czech Television, In Film Bratislava, STVR, Cinetim and Woodz production. War with salamanders will enter Slovak cinemas November 5, 2026 through a distribution company Garfield Film.