Polanski's Oliver Twist 'a film for my children'

Roman Polanski, debuting his new film Oliver Twist in Prague this weekend, said he chose to do the new adaptation of the classic novel because he admired 19th-century English literature and wanted to make a movie his children would enjoy.

The director, who in 2003 won an Academy Award for his Holocaust drama The Pianist, said he appreciated 19th-century authors’ fascination “with banal elements that influence our destiny”, mentioning Thomas Hardy and Oliver Twist author Charles Dickens, specifically.