Three Wishes for Cinderella: Moritzburg to Norway

The moated castle of Švihov in western Bohemia played the estate where Cinderella lives with her stepmother. The castle itself never appears on screen: the crew built barns, a living quarter and a plaster gate in front of it, put a dovecote in the courtyard and used locals as extras. Since 2013 the castle has a permanent exhibition with original costumes and props, and an information trail leads to filming spots nearby.

Visitor guidance: The castle has the permanent Cinderella exhibition; a trail runs to nearby filming locations.

Cinderella first meets the prince in a snowy wood: he aims his crossbow at a doe and she hits him in the face with a snowball. The second half of the film was shot in Czechoslovakia, with granary scenes near Klatovy and hunting scenes around Onen Svět. Snow was a problem here too: first too little, then so much that the crew could not reach the forests they had chosen. The famous snowball was thrown by director Vorlíček himself, not by the actress.

Location precision: The sources name the Klatovy area and Onen Svět, not exact spots; the pin marks Klatovy.

Shooting began in December 1972 at the DEFA studios in Potsdam-Babelsberg, where the sets for the ball and the granary interior were built. The ball was not filmed inside Moritzburg: its ballroom is lined with black leather and gold. At the Moritzburg exhibition a model of the ballroom is shown at 1:8, and the surviving hazelnut props are in the Potsdam film museum.

Moritzburg near Dresden is the castle of the royal family in the film. Exteriors around it were shot in January 1973, though the ballroom scenes were built elsewhere. The finale was filmed here: both leads ride across an untouched meadow with the camera panning to the castle, after snow finally fell just before shooting ended. Artificial snow had been tried with polystyrene and fish meal. The staircase where Cinderella loses her shoe now has a bronze copy and is a popular spot for marriage proposals, and a winter exhibition on the film drew more than 150,000 visitors in its first season, 2009/2010.

Visitor guidance: A film exhibition runs every winter in the castle; the staircase with the bronze shoe is a favourite proposal spot.

The Norwegian remake Tre nøtter til Askepott was released on 12 November 2021, based on the 1973 film. Parts of it were shot at a medieval castle in the town of Trakai, with interior scenes in a studio in Lithuania. Trakai Island Castle stands on an island in Lake Galvė. The Norwegian article names only a medieval castle in Trakai, not which one, so this pin is the town's island castle.

Location precision: The Norwegian article names a medieval castle in Trakai; the pin marks Trakai Island Castle, the town's best-known one.

The 2021 remake was also filmed in Norway, at Maihaugen and in Sjodalen. Maihaugen is one of the largest open-air museums in Northern Europe, with close to 200 buildings. The sources do not say which scenes were shot where, so this stop marks the museum as one of the named Norwegian locations rather than a specific scene.

Location precision: The sources name Maihaugen and Sjodalen without saying which scenes; the pin marks Maihaugen.