‘Soap Bubbles’ Tracks Down a Long-Gone Bohemian Dynasty: ‘A Big Industrial Empire Can Burst Like a Bubble’

‘Soap Bubbles’ Tracks Down a Long-Gone Bohemian Dynasty: ‘A Big Industrial Empire Can Burst Like a Bubble’

Czech documentarian Tatana Markova says she became intrigued by her subject in “Kingdom of Soap Bubbles” – a once-great Bohemian dynasty that’s been nearly forgotten – after meeting one of its would-be heirs. “One of the protagonists of my last film, “Libussa Unbound,” was U.S.-based director and producer Constantin Werner. He told me some family stories and I found them so appealing I wanted to find out more about the Schicht family he came f…

‘Kingdom of Soap Bubbles’: New Czech doc tells the story of the Schicht family and their iconic soap brand

The legendary “soap with the stag”—once a household name in Central Europe—is at the heart of Kingdom of Soap Bubbles (Království mýdlových bublin), a new Czech documentary from director Taťána Marková. The film chronicles the fortunes of the Schicht family, pioneering industrialists from Ústí nad Labem whose empire once rivaled Baťa and Škoda. After premiering in Ústí in mid-October, where descendants of the Schicht family gathered from across …