- Occupation
Director - Country
Czech Republic
Kratochvíl Jaroslav
Children of Stalinism
„CHILDREN OF STALINISM“are those who grew up in 50s in communist Czechoslovakia and experienced the Velvet Revolution. They opened up for the documentaries to give a testimony of the past. The communist regime robbed them of their childhood, they have often never seen one or both of their parents, or not until they came back from the communist prisons. They often ended up in the care of their relatives or in institutional care, at worst. They were labeled “children of the enemy”, or “criminals’ children” and were deprived of opportunities to get higher education, and condemned to live at the margins of the society. They were not guilty of anything, but had to live lives of sinners. This goes like a red thread through all fourteen 26 minutes long parts of “Children of Stalinism” series. The parts of the series are not only testimonies of political prisoners and their families as seen through the eyes of their children, but they also attempt to understand and mediate main protagonists’ life as they live it now and as it was shaped by their difficult past.
What Is It...
Exercise on the subject my view concerning the question "What is modern art?". – Department of documentary film, FAMU – 1st year (exercise).
Czech Postwar History
A nine-minute novelty made by fourth-year documentary film students which takes a sarcastic look at the cut-and-dried way in which the country's recent history is taught in schools, and the superficial way in which it is perceived by the younger generation. A lively teacher is questioning an impotent guest on what things were like under Communism. As part of "learning through play," Milada Horáková is shown as a paper figure, and the details of her execution are demonstrated. The activities of dissidents are portrayed by means of a banal pub scene. A long-haired member of the underground relates a funny anecdote from Havel's country cottage... The closing titles take the form of an impersonal questionnaire.
The Munich Agreement
A film anecdote and poem reacting to the EU’s plan to create a common history textbook for all seventeen EU countries. Let's Write a New History! – Department of documentary film, FAMU – 3rd year (film joke/film poem).
„CHILDREN OF STALINISM“are those who grew up in 50s in communist Czechoslovakia and experienced the Velvet Revolution. They opened up for the documentaries to give a testimony of the past. The communist regime robbed them of their childhood, they have often never seen one or both of their parents, or not until they came back from the communist prisons. They often ended up in the care of their relatives or in institutional care, at worst. They were labeled “children of the enemy”, or “criminals’ children” and were deprived of opportunities to get higher education, and condemned to live at the margins of the society. They were not guilty of anything, but had to live lives of sinners. This goes like a red thread through all fourteen 26 minutes long parts of “Children of Stalinism” series. The parts of the series are not only testimonies of political prisoners and their families as seen through the eyes of their children, but they also attempt to understand and mediate main protagonists’ life as they live it now and as it was shaped by their difficult past.
What Is It...
Exercise on the subject my view concerning the question "What is modern art?". – Department of documentary film, FAMU – 1st year (exercise).
Czech Postwar History
A nine-minute novelty made by fourth-year documentary film students which takes a sarcastic look at the cut-and-dried way in which the country's recent history is taught in schools, and the superficial way in which it is perceived by the younger generation. A lively teacher is questioning an impotent guest on what things were like under Communism. As part of "learning through play," Milada Horáková is shown as a paper figure, and the details of her execution are demonstrated. The activities of dissidents are portrayed by means of a banal pub scene. A long-haired member of the underground relates a funny anecdote from Havel's country cottage... The closing titles take the form of an impersonal questionnaire.
The Munich Agreement
A film anecdote and poem reacting to the EU’s plan to create a common history textbook for all seventeen EU countries. Let's Write a New History! – Department of documentary film, FAMU – 3rd year (film joke/film poem).
Long Live Hunting!
A documentary study of man-hunter in the postmodern times marked by constant hunting, chasing, games and trophies. However, it soon leaves the realm of hunting delimited by forests and meadows, transcending to its anthropological dimension where hunting is perceived as a general phenomenon concerning every one of us, related to our desire to visualize our achievements by means of various trophies. These tell others who we are; or, to be more precise, who we want them to think we are. In this way, the meaning of a certain activity is frequently overridden by its powerful image. The documentary introduces five protagonists, five hunters representing various approaches to hunting and life in general; following their chases, be it for animals or personal goals, the film also captures the ways in which they deal with their prey in all its forms.
A documentary study of man-hunter in the postmodern times marked by constant hunting, chasing, games and trophies. However, it soon leaves the realm of hunting delimited by forests and meadows, transcending to its anthropological dimension where hunting is perceived as a general phenomenon concerning every one of us, related to our desire to visualize our achievements by means of various trophies. These tell others who we are; or, to be more precise, who we want them to think we are. In this way, the meaning of a certain activity is frequently overridden by its powerful image. The documentary introduces five protagonists, five hunters representing various approaches to hunting and life in general; following their chases, be it for animals or personal goals, the film also captures the ways in which they deal with their prey in all its forms.
Jaroslav Kratochvíl studies Documentary Film at FAMU in Prague. He focuses on contemporary political and social reality and events seen in a perspective of historic stereotypes – General (2007), In vino veritas (2009), Munich Dictatorship (2009). His author´s approach is to provide complicated answers on apparent and easy questions – What is it...modern art (2007).