Presentation of Upcoming Czech Documentary Films 2010/2011
September 21, 2010 / 11am
Světozor / Prague
The event is co-organized by the Institute of Documentary Film and the Czech Film Center to celebrate the new edition of the catalogue Czech Documentary Films 2010/2011. The catalogue includes details on more than 100 Czech documentaries in various stages of development. It will be distributed at international festivals and markets in the months to follow and will soon be available online.
THEATRE SVOBODA
(Jakub Hejna, Jiří Konečný)
Czech Republic, 57 min
Director: Jakub Hejna
Producer: Jiří Konečný, Petr Morávek
Executive producer: Jindřich Bareš
Screenplay: Lucie Králová, Jan Gogola ml., Jakub Hejna, Lucie Králová, Pavel Křemen
Original idea: Jakub Hejna
Dramaturgy: Hana Stibralová
Director of photography: Jaromír Kačer, Jiří Chod
Editor: Jakub Hejna
Sound: Richard Müller
Music: Tadeáš Věrčák
“Darkness is my raw material. Just as the sculptor needs his clay, the carver needs his wood, I carve my theatre out of darkness." (Josef Svoboda). I grew up in the house of a man who was a brilliant stage designer, but who also was my grandfather to whom I did not talk much. I was twenty-five when he died and I realized I knew very little about him. Darkness and emptiness he would often talk about as his material filled up my head. I decided to explore the darkness and the emptiness through a film: and to search for some of the things that outlive us. (Jakub Hejna). The basic plot line of the film deals with Jakub's search for his deceased grandfather, famous stage designer Josef Svoboda. The search aims to present this extraordinary man in contexts that are still largely unknown. The film will also be the only Czech documentary dealing with Josef Svoboda's life and work in a comprehensive and profound manner as well as the only film to show archive materials related to Svoboda’s work and private life that have not yet been published.
ALL FOR THE GOOD OF THE WORLD AND NOSOVICE!
(Vít Klusák, Filip Remunda)
Czech Republic, 90 min
Director: Vít Klusák
Producer: Vít Klusák, Filip Remunda
Executive producer: Tereza Horská
Original idea: Vít Klusák
Script: Vít Klusák
Director of photography: Jakub Halousek
Editor: Jana Vlčková
Sound: Michal Gábor, Václav Flegl
An original portrait of a Czech village that houses a giant car plant built by South Korea's Hyundai. Before the village turned into an industrial zone, many of the landowners had no intention of selling their plots of land... Not until many of them faced pressure from their neighbours who had accepted approx. EUR 4000 in compensation and not until they received death threats. Using nine protagonists, the film paints a portrait of a village changed beyond recognition. A humourous yet compelling film about a field that yields cars.
TERRESTRIALS, WHO WILL YOU VOTE FOR?
(Linda Jablonská + 1filmmaker)
Czech Republic, 40 min
Director: Linda Jablonská
Producer: tým o.s.Inventura
Executive producer: Linda Jablonská, Petr Pinkas
Dramaturgy: Richard Komárek
Director of photography: David Cysař, Prokop Souček, Patrik Horvát, Aleš Koudela, Robert Novák, Martin Vošmik
Editor: Jakub Voves
"Conquering Public Space - Documentalities" is a documentary project made by people who find it hard to get oriented in the world and who probably never were A students. To put it politically correct, they are mentally handicapped. That, however, does not prevent them from having an original perspective, sensitivity, curiosity and courage - all one needs to become a documentarist. During a six month documentary workshop of the civic association Inventura, a film was made under the supervision of documentarist Linda Jablonská, trying to prove that mentally handicapped people, too, can get oriented in the public space and have a political opinion of their own. We were following a phenomenon concerning all of us - the Czech parliamentary election. The documentality crew took part in the pre-election meetings, filming public inquiries with both citizens and politicians, discussing themes that would be considered "unusual" in other media.
NECESSITY OF CHOICE
(Veronika Sobková, Richard Němec, Martina Šantavá)
Czech Republic, 90 min
Director: Veronika Sobková
Producer: HBO, Martina Šantavá
Executive producer: Richard Němec
Original idea: Veronika Sobková
Screenplay: Veronika Sobková
Director of photography: Daniel Šperl
Dramaturgy: Martin Mareček
Editor: Katarína Geyerová Buchanan
Sound: Václav Flegl
This long-term observational film compares the situation of prisoners sentenced for life with the situation of those who leave prison cells after several years. What does a man who has been looking forward to the day he would leave the prison gate for such a long time do? How does he cope with the fact that everything is different from what he imagined? What choices will he make? Will the situation be at least a little similar to what he expected? And what are the decisions and thoughts of a person who apparently has no choice – a person sentenced for life? The director's aim is to depict the moments where twists and important changes take place in the lives of these people. Based on the prisoners' stories, the film also intends to put forward the more general question of managing one's own time and freedom.
BEAR ISLANDS
(Martin Ryšavý, Vratislav Šlajer)
Czech Republic, 60 min
Director: Martin Ryšavý
Producer: Vratislav Šlajer
Original idea: Martin Ryšavý
Screenplay: Martin Ryšavý
Director of photography: Martin Ryšavý
Editor: Anna Ryndová
Sound: Marek Hart
In Bear Islands, director Martin Ryšavý continues his exploration of subjects related to the Sakha Republic, or Yakutia, Russia's Far Eastern Federal District. The film captures the life of residents in the remotest part of the territory, Nizhnekolymsky Ulus. Bear Islands are located in the East Siberian Sea at the mouth of the Kolyma River. The camera follows park rangers who take care of the nature reserve as they travel to an isolated polar station through the vast space where the past meets the present. A portrait of a landscape, its history and people who inhabit it.
TWO LITTLE SOMALIAN PIRATES
(David Čálek, Jefe Brown)
Czech Republic, 90 min
Director: David Čálek, Jakub Zahradníček
Producer: Jefe Brown
Executive producer: Kajka Gottwaldová
Original idea: Jakub Zahradníček, David Čálek
Screenplay: David Čálek
Director of photography: David Čálek
Editor: Jan Daňhel
Sound: Václav Flegl
The film tells the story of Somalian pirates who set out on the sea with the vision of feeding their hungry children, since they are living in a country where nothing has worked for dozens of years except for the lucrative business with ships and their cargo. We are far from advocating the terrorist who take hostages for ransom. We are far from defending the bosses of Somalian pirate clans who dispose of people, weapons and ships, representing an international power unit similar to ETA, Al Kaida or IRA. Our aim is to introduce Ali Muhammad Warsame, one of the hundreds of modern pirates who are spending endless days and weeks on the sea, taking drugs not to die of hunger and exhaustion, fearing everything and everyone like an animal waiting for its death in a cage.
HALF FORGOTTEN, HALF FORGIVEN
(Petra Ondřejková)
Czech Republic, 90 min
Director: Michael Wong, Petra Ondřejková, Maxim Dashkin
Producer: Petra Ondřejková
Original idea: Maxim Dashkin
Screenplay: Michael Wong, Maxim Dashkin, Linda Jablonská
Editor: Tonička Janková
Director of photography: Michael Wong, Mark Bliss, Jiří Makovec
Sound: Viktor Ekrt
The 21st of August 1968 was not only a date when political cards were dealt and power interests defended but also when people's lives were changed forever. It will be the lives of ordinary people and not the top brass of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union that will be explored in this film. Deftly balancing stories from both sides of the ideological barricade in a narrative arc spanning over 40 years, the documentary feature will bring a deeper meaning and context to the changes that affected these people's lives. Some deserve nothing but sheer admiration while others can be but forgiven.
ROCKING ALL OVER THE YEAR
(Jan Gogola)
Czech Republic, 80 min
Director: Jan Gogola ml.
Producer: Ladislav Cmíral
Executive producer: Ladislav Cmíral
Screenplay: Jan Gogola ml.
Director of photography: Vladan Vála
Editor: Ladislav Cmíral
Sound: Jiří Melcher
Original idea: Jan Gogola ml.
A creative documentary film portrait of Olda Říha, frontman of a famous Czech rock band Katapult celebrating 35 years of its existence. The first day of shooting captures the funeral of bass guitar player and Říha's lifelong friend Jiří "Old Man" Šindelář in January 2009 and the last day of shooting records an opening concert of the new album tour '' Joys of Life'', which took place in the largest church in Eastern Bohemia. Almost a thousand people attended the concert. The film follows the music, but particularly the life path of Říha and his band Katapult from the "church of death" to the "church of rebirth." It is a path full of doubt, fault, conflict and happiness, but above all it is a journey with no end.
GREAT OPPORTUNITY
Czech Republic, 57 min
Director: Vít Janeček
Producer: Lucie Sládková
Director of photography: Braňo Pažitka, Jiří Zykmund
Screenplay: Vít Janeček, Tomáš Janeba
Sound: Jiří Melcher, Lenka Mikulová
Editor: Hedvika Hansalová
Music: Johana Švarcová
Until the crisis of 2008, some eight thousand Mongolians came to work in the Czech Republic; since that time, the numbers reduced by half. Unlike other nationalities, most of them usually end up working at the very bottom of the production chain and services. Most of them had left for the West with a vision of improving their life standard and securing the lives of their children. These visions, however, are often problematic and the way back is not easy. To be able to start a new life in a country remote from their homeland and to secure a working position there, they were often forced to sell all their belongings. The film presents various examples of how Mongolians cope with the reality of life and work in the Czech Republic.
A TERRORIST MANUAL
Czech Republic, 95 min
Director: Tereza Reichová
Producer: Alice Taberyová
Screenplay: Tereza Reichová
Dramaturgy: Vít Janeček, Alice Růžičková
Director of photography: Vladimír Turner
Editor: Kristýna Toupalová
Sound: Martin Klusák
In the Basque region of Navarra, the director - a stranger - stops the passers by at the political graffiti, letting them explain what they mean and why they were painted. A documentary feature about repression, the anti-terrorist act and the events that happen within our common borders.
Contact:
Diana Tabakov
Project Coordinator
diana@dokweb.net
www.dokweb.net
