Michel Houellebecq: Submission
France in the near future. A candidate from Muslim Unity wins the election. A literature professor at the University of Paris must also come to terms with the changes that have taken place. A story about the search for faith, love, and the limits of submission.
Osoby a obsazení: François (Kamil Halbich), Myriam (Anežka Šťastná), Marie-Françoise (Lucie Juřičková), Rediger (Aleš Procházka), Alain Tanneur (Jan Vondráček), Bratr Joël (Luboš Veselý), Lempereur (Kryštof Krhovják), Dr. Azote (Petr Stach), Černoch (Jan Battěk), Áiša (Antonie Barešová) a francouzský hlas (Anna Martine Kubišta)
Dramaturgie: Martin Velíšek
Překlad: Alan Beguivin
Zvuk: Dominik Budil
Zvukový design: Ondřej Gášek
Režie: Petr Mančal
Premiéra: 24. 2. 2026 (Český rozhlas Vltava)
Natočeno: 2025
Vzhledem k prezentovanému příběhu, prostředí i charakterům postav obsahuje četba expresivní scény a výrazy.
François is a respected expert on 19th-century literature and teaches at the Sorbonne in Paris. However, it cannot be said that his teaching career fulfills him very much. He lives alone and has cut off contact with his parents. He appreciates good food and, above all, good drinks, but he mostly subsists on microwave meals. Occasionally, he enters into a short-term relationship with one of his students.
He doesn’t vote. He despises politics. But politics will have a significant impact on his life. The Muslim Unity Party wins the election.
This happens primarily because of the incompetence of the traditional democratic parties. Moreover, fearing a victory by the far-right National Front’s candidate, these parties end up supporting the Muslim party’s candidate. And events unfold with such speed and force that they compel even the detached intellectual François to make a fundamental decision.
Čtěte také
Michel Houellebecq wrote his sixth novel in 2015 and set it in the year 2022. At the time, he himself considered the possibility of an Islamic party seizing power to be a scenario that was theoretically possible but highly unlikely in practice.
By a tragic twist of fate, on the very day the novel was scheduled for release, a massacre took place at the offices of the magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris. There was no direct connection to the novel *Submission*, and the publisher postponed all promotional events (Houellebecq himself was even placed under police protection for a time), but the work was thrust into a significantly different context.
Our Czech context is, of course, different as well. We do not have as pronounced a historical or current experience with Islamic society as France does. In the novel, however, Islam appears less as a spiritual or ideological choice and more as a practical guide to life and to the governance of society—unfortunately, one with many totalitarian aspects.
And we, too, have had recent and extensive experience with just how difficult it is to find the boundaries of compromise—or rather, collaboration—with such a regime. Matěj Samec wrote the dramatization—based on Alan Beguivin’s translation—for Czech Radio. Director Petr Mančal collaborated with sound designer Ondřej Gášek and sound engineer Dominik Budil. He cast Kamil Halbich in the lead role.
Download the script to your cell phone:
We will be presenting the project at Prix Bohemia Radio
When: Tuesday, October 20, 2026 | 9:30 a.m. – 6:30 p.m.
Where: UP Arts Center, Film Hall – 3rd floor
Entrance: Free admission with accreditation
