- Occupation
Director - Country
Czech Republic
Mareček Martin
Dust Games
This documentary presents both sides of the conflict around the meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in September 2000, and the media game played out in the tiny Czech playground. We witness both the actions and attitudes of the Prague Municipality and the police, and of the protesters, mainly young people from abroad who came to voice their opinions like modern-day martyrs. There are many other characters, for instance, an entrepreneur who set out to sell refreshments and sleeping bags at the Strahov stadium where protesters planned to sleep. In the end nobody came and he was left with a stall of sausages, sleeping bags and interesting observations.
Egg Methods
An informative stylized "walkmovie". Adam, the film's protagonist, visits different environments in order to explore a seemingly trivial and exhausted issue, i.e., the opportunities and methods of dating. Instead of formal courting rituals, there is a rise in a large number of rather dubious new practices. The search for a date is becoming a more and more profitable business. Adam meets women with the assistance of psychics, computers, stars, video and numbers. Subtle private matters come to look like TV shows or they are being solved with the help of such primitive algorithms as "we are the fastest and the most entertaining..."
Programme Change
Different views on the media - their good and bad sides.
Maple 98
A young extra from the National Theatre plans to encircle Prague with trees that he plants every year. The edge of dreams, the borders of fiction, the boundaries of theatre and the city limits.
Home Within...
In October 2002, the theatre company "Ježek a Čížek" run by homeless people went on a tour of the region of Southern Bohemia that was then hit by floods. A small film crew followed the tour.
The Source
Baku in Azerbaijan, the site of the world's first oil well, is once again becoming a focus for foreign investors eager to exploit the country's vast oil riches. Source traces the pipeline from our commuter highways back to this surreal and sinister landscape on which our way of life depends, where cows graze on polluted land and children play in toxic gunge. With three quarters of the population living under the poverty line, the country's post-Soviet government is promising that oil will turn Azerbaijan into a 'real country', a prosperous and flourishing 'New Kuwait'. But between big oil companies like British Petroleum and the corrupt government lining their pockets, what does this mean for the ordinary people of Azerbaijan? Is this "liquid gold" more of a curse than a blessing for the troubled country?
Auto*Mate
"A playful film essay about our automobile-automatic society. A film crossing the border of its media, turning into a social act.Martin Mareček: “I lived in downtown Prague, in the ""heart of Europe"". In Prague, ""the mother of cities"", as well as ""the city of cars""... According to statistics, it is one of the most car-crippled cities in Europe. Six years ago, I met my neighbour in the hallway. He was moving: ""Well, we're off, we can't take this anymore."" I replied: ""Yeah, I understand, it's the cars, isn't it? The noise, the smell…"" The neighbour smiled, puzzled: ""Not really, it's cause we have nowhere to park."" Is the story absurd? Is my neighbour autistic? Not quite. I believe that most of us city folks are this automatic… We all suffer from it… Automatically we swear, automatically we drive. Slowly but surely, our game ends with our own auto-mate. Isn't there anything we can do about it? I realized that it is no longer sufficient to make a film. It would only turn into another short essay filled with automated clichés, targetting the usual audience. Another submission into the intellectual fish tank. Therefore, I have gradually turned from a film director into an activist, an artistic radical and a political lobbyist. The multilayered organism AUTO*MATE was conceived.”
Cappucino
A short excursion to dicover the mysteries of capuccino production in a lot machine at Prague's Main Station. FAMU, Department of Documentary Film (1. ročník)
Waiting
They waited and they were rewarded. FAMU, Department of Documentary Film (1. ročník)
Solar Eclipse
In 2006, Milan and Tomas electrified a school campus and a hospital in a detached Zambian village. After four years, they return for the last time to find out about their system's failures, repair it and hand it over at last. The film follows them through chaotic days as well as pitch black nights and provides a fresh insight into the pitfalls of humanitarian development projects. Short circuits of all sorts, blending and dissolving of different worlds, rituals of gratitude and concepts of solutions. With no attempts to declare or evaluate anything, Solar Eclipse becomes a situation probe examining various forms of light and darkness. Will the two Czech linkboys succeed in lighting up the Zambian bushland?
24
A documentary collage about the progress of one Czech day, composed by 24 directors. Everyone picked one hour, day or night, and received two minutes of the whole film at his or her disposal. This allowed for the mosaic on genres and topics that portrait the atmosphere of the Czech Republic today. At the same time, this unique project presents various filmmaking styles and approaches of the best contemporary Czech documentarians, all on the reel of one film. The authors accompany teenagers at a discotheque, observe doctors during surgery, laborers in a factory, believers in a synagogue or the descent in a human throat. Olga Špátová records the authentic power of the moment when the child is born. Vít Klusák engages a special camcorder to freeze the time of one tram stop. The flow of time is Helena Třeštíková’s topic – she films Katka taking yet another public bath in a Prague’s fountain. Martin Mareček shows a pair of legs sunk in aquarium, which, backed with a voiceover, illustrates the timeless power of human stupidity. Jiří Krejčík, a significant persona of Czech film, conceived his film hour with a great amount of humor and exaggeration.
This documentary presents both sides of the conflict around the meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in September 2000, and the media game played out in the tiny Czech playground. We witness both the actions and attitudes of the Prague Municipality and the police, and of the protesters, mainly young people from abroad who came to voice their opinions like modern-day martyrs. There are many other characters, for instance, an entrepreneur who set out to sell refreshments and sleeping bags at the Strahov stadium where protesters planned to sleep. In the end nobody came and he was left with a stall of sausages, sleeping bags and interesting observations.
Egg Methods
An informative stylized "walkmovie". Adam, the film's protagonist, visits different environments in order to explore a seemingly trivial and exhausted issue, i.e., the opportunities and methods of dating. Instead of formal courting rituals, there is a rise in a large number of rather dubious new practices. The search for a date is becoming a more and more profitable business. Adam meets women with the assistance of psychics, computers, stars, video and numbers. Subtle private matters come to look like TV shows or they are being solved with the help of such primitive algorithms as "we are the fastest and the most entertaining..."
Programme Change
Different views on the media - their good and bad sides.
Maple 98
A young extra from the National Theatre plans to encircle Prague with trees that he plants every year. The edge of dreams, the borders of fiction, the boundaries of theatre and the city limits.
Home Within...
In October 2002, the theatre company "Ježek a Čížek" run by homeless people went on a tour of the region of Southern Bohemia that was then hit by floods. A small film crew followed the tour.
The Source
Baku in Azerbaijan, the site of the world's first oil well, is once again becoming a focus for foreign investors eager to exploit the country's vast oil riches. Source traces the pipeline from our commuter highways back to this surreal and sinister landscape on which our way of life depends, where cows graze on polluted land and children play in toxic gunge. With three quarters of the population living under the poverty line, the country's post-Soviet government is promising that oil will turn Azerbaijan into a 'real country', a prosperous and flourishing 'New Kuwait'. But between big oil companies like British Petroleum and the corrupt government lining their pockets, what does this mean for the ordinary people of Azerbaijan? Is this "liquid gold" more of a curse than a blessing for the troubled country?
Auto*Mate
"A playful film essay about our automobile-automatic society. A film crossing the border of its media, turning into a social act.Martin Mareček: “I lived in downtown Prague, in the ""heart of Europe"". In Prague, ""the mother of cities"", as well as ""the city of cars""... According to statistics, it is one of the most car-crippled cities in Europe. Six years ago, I met my neighbour in the hallway. He was moving: ""Well, we're off, we can't take this anymore."" I replied: ""Yeah, I understand, it's the cars, isn't it? The noise, the smell…"" The neighbour smiled, puzzled: ""Not really, it's cause we have nowhere to park."" Is the story absurd? Is my neighbour autistic? Not quite. I believe that most of us city folks are this automatic… We all suffer from it… Automatically we swear, automatically we drive. Slowly but surely, our game ends with our own auto-mate. Isn't there anything we can do about it? I realized that it is no longer sufficient to make a film. It would only turn into another short essay filled with automated clichés, targetting the usual audience. Another submission into the intellectual fish tank. Therefore, I have gradually turned from a film director into an activist, an artistic radical and a political lobbyist. The multilayered organism AUTO*MATE was conceived.”
Cappucino
A short excursion to dicover the mysteries of capuccino production in a lot machine at Prague's Main Station. FAMU, Department of Documentary Film (1. ročník)
Waiting
They waited and they were rewarded. FAMU, Department of Documentary Film (1. ročník)
Solar Eclipse
In 2006, Milan and Tomas electrified a school campus and a hospital in a detached Zambian village. After four years, they return for the last time to find out about their system's failures, repair it and hand it over at last. The film follows them through chaotic days as well as pitch black nights and provides a fresh insight into the pitfalls of humanitarian development projects. Short circuits of all sorts, blending and dissolving of different worlds, rituals of gratitude and concepts of solutions. With no attempts to declare or evaluate anything, Solar Eclipse becomes a situation probe examining various forms of light and darkness. Will the two Czech linkboys succeed in lighting up the Zambian bushland?
24
A documentary collage about the progress of one Czech day, composed by 24 directors. Everyone picked one hour, day or night, and received two minutes of the whole film at his or her disposal. This allowed for the mosaic on genres and topics that portrait the atmosphere of the Czech Republic today. At the same time, this unique project presents various filmmaking styles and approaches of the best contemporary Czech documentarians, all on the reel of one film. The authors accompany teenagers at a discotheque, observe doctors during surgery, laborers in a factory, believers in a synagogue or the descent in a human throat. Olga Špátová records the authentic power of the moment when the child is born. Vít Klusák engages a special camcorder to freeze the time of one tram stop. The flow of time is Helena Třeštíková’s topic – she films Katka taking yet another public bath in a Prague’s fountain. Martin Mareček shows a pair of legs sunk in aquarium, which, backed with a voiceover, illustrates the timeless power of human stupidity. Jiří Krejčík, a significant persona of Czech film, conceived his film hour with a great amount of humor and exaggeration.
Born March 17, 1974. Education: 1993 - 1997 Department of Culture Studies, Charles University, 1996 - 2002 Department of Documentary Film, FAMU. Since 2003 - tutor of 1st Year Class, Department of Documentary Film, FAMU. Musician and script editor, co-founder of a number of social projects, such as Jednotka www.jednotka.cz, Letokruh, Auto*Mat www.auto-mat.cz. Selected filmography, TV programmes: Čekání (FAMU, 1997); Kapučíno (FAMU, 1997); Akční lyrika (FAMU, 1998); Javor 98 (FAMU, 1998); Čistička divadlem“ (with V. Janeček, Czech TV - Zblízka TV series, 1999); Metody vejce (FAMU, Czech TV, 1999); Alternativa pro alternativu (Czech TV, Intolerance TV series, 2000); Změna programu (Czech TV, Velký vůz series, 2002); Dust Games (Bionaut, FAMU, Czech TV, 2001 - Jihlava IDFF 2001: Award for Best Czech Documentary Film; Audience Award. Famu Fest 2001: Audience Award, IFF ECOCINEMA, Greece 2002 - Best TV Report, IFF Fairport, UK - Best Documentary Film 2003); Source / Zdroj (77 minut, Bionaut, 2005, awards: One World IFF 2005: Audience Award, Special Mention. Ekofilm IFF: 2005 Grand Prix, Ministry of the Environment Award. Dok Leipzig 2005: MDR Award for Best East European Documentary Film, Jihlava IDFF 2005: Audience Award, Award for Best Czech Documentary Film, etc.). Auto*Mat/Auto*Mate corresponds with his previous films in spirit. It engages in rethinking the so-called individual mobility, looking for alternatives of natural limitation of Prague’s transport, i.e. not by means of legal regulations but by rethinking the possibilities of transport. This documentary urban story was presented at the Czech Joy section of the Jihlava IDFF 2009, gaining the Audience Award. The film was successfully introduced at several international festivals. In Torino, it received the Student Jury Award, at the festival in Yamagata, Japan, it stirred great response among the spectators. The film was also introduced at the DMZ Docs festival in South Korea, DOK Leipzig festival in Germany, Visions du Reel in Switzerland, etc. and was even voted Documentary Film of the Decade in an internet poll conducted in 2010 by Jihlava IDFF and Czech Television.
Pod sluncem tma/Solar Eclipse, latest film, by Martin Mareček, follows two Czech aid workers back to a village in Zambia where they had carried out an electricification project some years previously. The story of an attempt at transferring European technologies and responsibilities, a colorful exploration of one situation that, without judging and without any direct commentary, looks at different forms of light and darkness. Solar Eclipse was named Best Czech Documentary Film 2011 in the Czech Joy competition at the Jihlava IDFF 2011, received there the audience award, and was selected by a jury of industry figures for the Institute of Documentary Film’s (IDF) Silver Eye Award. Solar Eclipse also received a Trilobite Award presented annually by the Czech Film and Television Association (FITES) and was voted Best Czech Doc by Critics. Other festivals: Karlovy Vary IFF (competition), Bratislava IFF (competition), Sevilla IFF, Starz Denver IFF, Wien This Human World Festival, etc.
Javor 98 (FAMU, 1998); Čistička divadlem“ (with V. Janeček, Czech TV - Zblízka TV series, 1999); Metody vejce (FAMU, Czech TV, 1999); Alternativa pro alternativu (Czech TV, Intolerance TV series, 2000); Změna programu (Czech TV, Velký vůz series, 2002); Dust Games (Bionaut, FAMU, Czech TV, 2001 - Jihlava IDFF 2001: Award for Best Czech Documentary Film; Audience Award. Famu Fest 2001: Audience Award, IFF ECOCINEMA, Greece 2002 - Best TV Report, IFF Fairport, UK - Best Documentary Film 2003); Source / Zdroj (77 minut, Bionaut, 2005, awards: One World IFF 2005: Audience Award, Special Mention. Ekofilm IFF: 2005 Grand Prix, Ministry of the Environment Award. Dok Leipzig 2005: MDR Award for Best East European Documentary Film, Jihlava IDFF 2005: Audience Award, Award for Best Czech Documentary Film, etc.).
Docu Talents from the East 2005 - 2005