Berčík Pavel

The Baluty Ghetto
I discovered the Baluty district three years ago, almost by chance. It looks much like in surviving wartime photographs. Today, the devastated houses are inhabited by a highly unusual social group which differs distinctly from the remaining population of Lodz... as if the borders of the ghetto still existed. Our film illustrates human misery and the horror of a landscape touched by horror through the survivors' wartime stories.

Vera Caslavska - 68
The film about Věra Čáslavská is an evaluation of her life. With her seven gold and four silver Olympic medals, she represents the most successful Czechoslovak sportswoman of all time as well as the fourth most successful Olympic sportswoman of the world. After her breathtaking victory at the Summer Olympics in Mexico City in 1968, she was pronounced the second most popular woman of the planet after Jacqueline Kennedy. In 1968, she signed the 2000 Words Manifesto which she never withdrew. Despite her enormous fame, which she deserved for her incredibly hard work and endurance, she lived a troubled life (political situation during normalization, marriage, family tragedy). Her unique life story reflects the situation in the Czech society, both in the communist and democratic regime. In both cases, she was active in the civil sphere. She considers her sporting past as a few moments of fame which can hardly make up for her troublesome life. Today, Věra is 68 years old. 42 years have passed since her fascinating sports career. She is still widely known in the Czech society as well as in Japan where she still earns fidelity and admiration. Her life story represents a unique phenomenon in the history of the Czech nation.

Into Oblivion
Stalin grasps a pencil in his hand as he prepares to draw a line on a map of the Soviet Union. Where the graphite touches paper, some 80,000 people - almost all of them gulag inmates - will build a railroad in the gruelling conditions of the polar taiga. It is a railway line of almost no strategic importance, built on permafrost and polar marshes, using limited technology and equipment. For four years, they will slave away, succumbing to exhaustion, illness, cruelty, and solitary confinement before, finally, the death of Stalin himself. In just a few weeks, there will be nothing left of their hectic activity except for empty camp barracks, old locomotives, bits of track, embankments, telegraph wires. All left to slowly return to the taiga…

New Life
The film is a story of a big Slovak Catholic family which has been left by the father. Mother Jana, five daughters and son Adam were suddenly left alone. Adam decided to put up with the huge change in his life in a very strong way, shooting this film as the "last man standing" in the family. This film tells the story of how one man cannot manage seven women and how seven women can fight for one man. How can he learn from his parents' divorce and how can he help teach his sisters to divorce well in the future?

Born April 21, 1983. Graduated from FAMU, production department. In 2008 he became member of ACE, prestigious European Producers Network. Selected filmography: Frankie the Womanizer – feature, dir. Jan Prušinovský; The Baluty Ghetto – feature documentary, dir. Pavel Štingl, Trilobit 2008, awarded at Crossroads of Europe Lublin, Poland, Czech Lion award nomination 2009; A Tear Is Needed – short animation, dir. Kristina Dufková, awarded as best Czech animated film at AniFest Třeboň 2009.