- Occupation
Producer, Director - Country
Czech Republic
Bystřičan Ivo
Better Tomorrow
This incisive documentary film looks inside the global organization of young and ambitious economics students who want to change the world and make it better. While working for companies, they try to encourage corporate responsibility.
Sikora. A Small Personal Marketing Epic.
According to the dominant liberal idea each is responsible for his own fate. In the post-industrial era man is a commodity and to shape his own fate means to move between the poles of sell yourself – don’t sell yourself. Playwright Roman Sikora (3. 7. 1970) in comical portrait shows how it looks in the real backdrop of Brno. In 1998 he placed second for the Radok prize for his play Smetení Antigony, a number of years after he is fired from the position of night doorman for the City Theatre in Brno. But the system alone can’t be blamed. – Department of documentary film, FAMU – 2nd year (auteur portrait).
The Exchange of Prejudices
A para-documentary film on Czechs and Germans, on opposing versions of their histoires, on prejudices, stereotypes and on the microworlss of co-existence. - Department of documentary film, FAMU - 1st year (special exercise).
Damn Sad Chicken
A collage linking chicken farms, chicken slaughet houses and chicken restaurants. The story of a lost stuffed chicken features a critical view of the vicious circle of (post)modern economics. - Department of documentary film, FAMU - 1st year.
Copper Age
A documentary exploration set in Zambia which, despite being one of the largest exporters of copper in the world, is increasingly more dependent on international aid. Having privatized the copper mines, Zambia no longer has earnings from copper export.
Examining Class Origin
The parent’s house provides testimony of a partner’s class origin. The classes are in eternal conflict. – Department of documentary film, FAMU – 4th year (auteur videofilm).
All Future Chernobyl
On April 26, 2011, a quarter of a century has passed since the explosion of the Soviet Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Memories of the disaster are still alive. The recovery of Fukushima is supposed to last nine months; however, not even twenty five years were enough for the recovery of Chernobyl. A quarter of a century after the disaster, international forces are still at work, trying to stop the threat of further contamination caused by the greatest nuclear catastrophe in history. The powerful memento of Chernobyl is feared practically all around the world. The Volhynia Czechs, Czech Republic's fellow countrymen, also appeared in the close vicinity of the accident. Their evacuation to their original homeland could only start four years later. Those who have survived have been vastly affected by the catastrophe.
This incisive documentary film looks inside the global organization of young and ambitious economics students who want to change the world and make it better. While working for companies, they try to encourage corporate responsibility.
Sikora. A Small Personal Marketing Epic.
According to the dominant liberal idea each is responsible for his own fate. In the post-industrial era man is a commodity and to shape his own fate means to move between the poles of sell yourself – don’t sell yourself. Playwright Roman Sikora (3. 7. 1970) in comical portrait shows how it looks in the real backdrop of Brno. In 1998 he placed second for the Radok prize for his play Smetení Antigony, a number of years after he is fired from the position of night doorman for the City Theatre in Brno. But the system alone can’t be blamed. – Department of documentary film, FAMU – 2nd year (auteur portrait).
The Exchange of Prejudices
A para-documentary film on Czechs and Germans, on opposing versions of their histoires, on prejudices, stereotypes and on the microworlss of co-existence. - Department of documentary film, FAMU - 1st year (special exercise).
Damn Sad Chicken
A collage linking chicken farms, chicken slaughet houses and chicken restaurants. The story of a lost stuffed chicken features a critical view of the vicious circle of (post)modern economics. - Department of documentary film, FAMU - 1st year.
Copper Age
A documentary exploration set in Zambia which, despite being one of the largest exporters of copper in the world, is increasingly more dependent on international aid. Having privatized the copper mines, Zambia no longer has earnings from copper export.
Examining Class Origin
The parent’s house provides testimony of a partner’s class origin. The classes are in eternal conflict. – Department of documentary film, FAMU – 4th year (auteur videofilm).
All Future Chernobyl
On April 26, 2011, a quarter of a century has passed since the explosion of the Soviet Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Memories of the disaster are still alive. The recovery of Fukushima is supposed to last nine months; however, not even twenty five years were enough for the recovery of Chernobyl. A quarter of a century after the disaster, international forces are still at work, trying to stop the threat of further contamination caused by the greatest nuclear catastrophe in history. The powerful memento of Chernobyl is feared practically all around the world. The Volhynia Czechs, Czech Republic's fellow countrymen, also appeared in the close vicinity of the accident. Their evacuation to their original homeland could only start four years later. Those who have survived have been vastly affected by the catastrophe.
Under (the) Construction
The final stretch of the D8 highway across the České středohoří national park is the last project for a 72-year-old engineer. He would like to see it finished, to show it to his grandsons as his legacy and to finally retire. However, the 16-kilometer stretch of highway between Prague and Berlin takes forever to complete. Lawsuits follow one after another and the national park is crossed not by a stretch of concrete but only by a dotted line in the map. The national park thus becomes the playing field for a fundamental clash of opinions with the highway torso in the background – a torso which nobody wanted in the first place. In set-up situations, the film analyses the reasons why and how our living space is being filled with an engineering project that will stay there forever, and what this has to say about the rules of our world.
My Last 14 Thousand Cigarettes
This infotainment documentary tackles the politics and business behind the most widespread addiction. The filmmakers travel to Kutna Hora to explore the state-tolerated drug in terms of the business it generates. Kutná Hora with its cigarette factory becomes a microcosm that represents the vicious circle of making money off human weakness. A long-time heavy smoker, the director of the film will undergo a yearlong tobacco addiction rehab that will start around the time he starts shooting the film. His rehab experience will be recorded in a personal video diary that will serve as a time frame for the main storyline of the film featuring managers, developers and marketing specialists of Phillip Morris, deputies and senators living in Kutna Hora, owners of local pubs and bars, local psychologists, doctors and quacks of various species who specialize in smoking cessation and, of course, ordinary smokers from Kutná Hora.
Pecking Order
This rather unusual documentary film is made by a group of mentally handicapped participants of the film workshop run by Inventura, an association for the integration of mentally handicapped people into society through art. They are coached by Ivo Bystričan, author and director of the film. Pecking Order is inspired by the protracted government crisis in 2012, the escalation of corruption cases and ongoing civil protests. Mentally handicapped filmmakers are trying to find their own solutions to the crisis of governance. They are trying to find a new model of the functioning of government also into communities of a variety of animals. The crew conducts a dialogue with leading ethologist and sociobiologist Daniel Frynta of the Faculty of Science, and Mark Spinka of the Research Institute of Animal Production in Uhříněves.
The final stretch of the D8 highway across the České středohoří national park is the last project for a 72-year-old engineer. He would like to see it finished, to show it to his grandsons as his legacy and to finally retire. However, the 16-kilometer stretch of highway between Prague and Berlin takes forever to complete. Lawsuits follow one after another and the national park is crossed not by a stretch of concrete but only by a dotted line in the map. The national park thus becomes the playing field for a fundamental clash of opinions with the highway torso in the background – a torso which nobody wanted in the first place. In set-up situations, the film analyses the reasons why and how our living space is being filled with an engineering project that will stay there forever, and what this has to say about the rules of our world.
My Last 14 Thousand Cigarettes
This infotainment documentary tackles the politics and business behind the most widespread addiction. The filmmakers travel to Kutna Hora to explore the state-tolerated drug in terms of the business it generates. Kutná Hora with its cigarette factory becomes a microcosm that represents the vicious circle of making money off human weakness. A long-time heavy smoker, the director of the film will undergo a yearlong tobacco addiction rehab that will start around the time he starts shooting the film. His rehab experience will be recorded in a personal video diary that will serve as a time frame for the main storyline of the film featuring managers, developers and marketing specialists of Phillip Morris, deputies and senators living in Kutna Hora, owners of local pubs and bars, local psychologists, doctors and quacks of various species who specialize in smoking cessation and, of course, ordinary smokers from Kutná Hora.
Pecking Order
This rather unusual documentary film is made by a group of mentally handicapped participants of the film workshop run by Inventura, an association for the integration of mentally handicapped people into society through art. They are coached by Ivo Bystričan, author and director of the film. Pecking Order is inspired by the protracted government crisis in 2012, the escalation of corruption cases and ongoing civil protests. Mentally handicapped filmmakers are trying to find their own solutions to the crisis of governance. They are trying to find a new model of the functioning of government also into communities of a variety of animals. The crew conducts a dialogue with leading ethologist and sociobiologist Daniel Frynta of the Faculty of Science, and Mark Spinka of the Research Institute of Animal Production in Uhříněves.
Ivo Bystrican (*1980) graduated from Sociology and Social Policy-Social Work. Currently he is studying the last grade of Documentary Filmmaking at Film and TV School of Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, Czech Republic. He focuses especially on social topics. His author documentary films were screened by festivals in China, Izrael, Canada, Brazil, France, Spain, Moldovia, Germany and many other countries. For CEE Bankwatch Network he directed his last feature documentary film Copper Age which reveals paradoxical nature of European development help in Zambian copper mining industry. Ivo Bystrican as a director also cooperates with Czech Television and with variety of NGOs.
Prejudice Fair (2005), Sikora. Little Personal Marketing Epic (2007), Permanent Residence Prague (2008), Class Origin Analysis (2009), Copper Age (2010), Hypermarket, His Master And Slave (2011), Chernobyl. Explosion That Wasn´t Real (2011)
FAMU - Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague
Smetanovo nábřeží 2
116 65 Prague 1
Smetanovo nábřeží 2
116 65 Prague 1
Catalogue of Upcoming Czech Documentary Films - 2012