The Sopranos creator David Chase held court during the 60th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) in the Czech Republic on Tuesday.
A day before appearing at the expanded and broadened KVIFF Industry Days program of the festival, the seven-time Emmy winner was in much demand but took time to chat with groups of reporters about his work and the state of the industry.
Of course, much time was dedicated to The Sopranos. But Chase was also asked about his new project at HBO, which was unveiled in the fall. He optioned John Lisle’s nonfiction book Project Mind Control: Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA and the Tragedy of MKULTRA to adapt it as a limited series. The drama project, entitled Project: MKUltra, should it go to series, will be Chase’s first HBO effort since his Sopranos prequel film.“I’m in the story stage,” he shared before outlining key elements of the story: “LSD was invented in Switzerland, developed in Switzerland and our CIA bought millions and millions and millions of dollars of it because they wanted to weaponize it,” Chase said. “They said maybe we can [do that so] that people won’t have to get shot anymore in a war; they’ll just go crazy. That’s what their excuse was, but that was not what they cared about. So, there was a very large famous program called MKUltra in the United States, where they tested LSD on people. People have said that Charles Manson was probably given LSD somewhere.”
