- Occupation
Producer, Director - Country
Czech Republic
Řezníček Martin
Farewell Sun
A deep interpretation of life and work of Czech painter Alén Diviš (1900 - 1956), the film is not a mere portrait or a profile. It is a subjective and abstract picture of his voyages across the world, it is a substance of creative moments. The artist's existence and experience is reflected in moments linked up with the lines of his travels around the world.
Sarajevo '94
A documentary essay about blasted time, hollowed-out houses and life in an occupied city ten years after the Olympic Games. The film features a minimalist score by Jiří Durman and is almost without words.
That's What America Is Like
Coast to coast across the United States with truck driver Pepík Svoboda.
Mushroom
A film essay which tries to explain nature, science and civilization through the structure of fungus. At the beginning, there was the confirmation of a theory which said that all plants in a single ecosystem are connected to each other through microscopic mushroom fibers. The film also views the mushroom as a metaphor...
Loan Shark
Usury - a phenomenon which has spread through the Czech Roma community in the past few years.
The Concrete Waltz
Gabčíkovo-Nagymárosz - for some, it is the construction project of the century, for others, an anti-environmental monster damaging and spoiling the landscape for many decades to follow.
Lost Holiday
A documentary detective story. Lada, a Czech traveller, finds by chance a dirty suitcase in a Swedish waste bin. It contains only a very carefully packed plastic bag full of film rolls. Lada takes all of the 22 film rolls home to Prague and has them developed. There are 756 fascinating photos from a trip of seven Asian men, probably from China. Lost Holiday tells the story of the search for these unknown tourists, based only on the lost photographs. We would like to give the photos back to them. And so the unknown men from Asia become guides on our exciting journey as we search through the lost photos and also for the nature of contemporary man.
Requiem for Noman's Land
Libavá, a part of the former Sudetenland, saw the presence of home and foreign armies which severed people's connection to the land. About the land sacrificed to the armies.
Life in Feathers
A documentary film about the boundaries between life and theatre - circus art on the stage, on a trapeze, in a trailer or in a water canal... Several years in the life of the Contionuo theatre group from Malovice in South Bohemia.
Rules of the Game - Delimitation of Space
The project entitled Rules of the Game developed into a series of institutional portraits. The first part Defining the Space takes place during the NATO Summit in Prague in 2002. It deals with the specificity of such a meeting, where every detail is planned and prepared well in advance, including the results. The event itself becomes a performance for the media that are supposed to(re)create the human dimension of the event and the organization. The film is composed of detailed descriptions and shot with a certain distance that offers a different perspective of the events.
Moment of Fame...
In his documentary report, director Martin Řezníček shows - through the story of Petr Markyzek - the situation during and after the floods in the Czech Republic in 2002. He also examines the superficial picture that media presented at that time. Petr Markyzek experienced his moment of fame when TV screens and newspapers showed him floating on the furious river on a wooden beam. The director confronts the picutre presented by media with the real story of the man who was just saving his life and who lost everything during the floods. The film is structured so that each part is named after Beethoven's 5th Symphony; at the end of the film, the Mayor declares that the flood situation is fully under control.
Jan Křížek, Sculptures and Bees
An existentional and artistic film about the almost forgotten sculptor, painter and beekeeper Jan Křížek, an artist in the Art Brut movement. About life with art in post-war France and also about Jan's wife Jiřina Křížková.
Brussels 2058
1950s was a time of the biggest repressions by the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, and yet it was possible to create a national showcase that became an unexpected spectacle at the Expo 1958 exhibition; the products, crafts and design presented in Brussels became a social phenomenon, described vividly, along with the paradoxically free work in the oppressive atmosphere behind the Iron Curtain, by the authors and visitors to the exhibition in a film that utilizes archive materials.
The Beethoven´s Waltz
The controversional construction of the Hydroelectric Power Station Gabčíkovo-Nagymárosz seen as a clash of views of the politicians who decided its finish.
The Mordor Chorus
Film on the punk scene, marihuana, Tolkien and the weight of the past. Czech musicians . Jim Čert and Jaroslav Erno Šedivý between San Francisco and Prague.
A Family in the Desert
A documentary which attempts to get close to the everyday life of nomadic Mongolian family living in the Gobi desert.
The Glory of the Republic
The Prague Uprising in 1945 free of a few myths, superstitions and historical falsifications.
Front Women
The interpretation of history is guided by the momentary political situation. Martin Řezníček realizes an attempt to demolish certain present controversies in a film that follows the destinies of women on the Eastern Front of World War II.
Alen
An in-depth interpretation of the life and work of Czech painter Alén Diviš (1900 – 1956) is not merely a portrait but a subjective and abstract depiction of the painter’s travels through the world, filled with creative moments. The artist’s existential experience is reflected in these moments, linked up by the lines of his voyages across the world. The director went to France, Morocco and the United States to record places that once inspired the artist, the landscapes and the walls, capturing their essence, even in a single shot, one brief glimpse. The film develops through the tension between Řezníček’s contemporary perspective, his documentary invention, and Diviš’s original works, his drawings and fragmentary writings. This seems the only possible way to express the crucial moments of the artist’s story. The director also uses interviews with people who were close to him, and animations of some of Diviš’s drawings.
Shitcredit
You take out a loan and then have to pay several times over the loaned sum or you lose your house for a few thousand or you find yourself in debt for the rest of your life. Chang the rapper talks about "Shitcredit". Taking a glimpse into the workings of the system, this film follows the stories of people who are in debt owing to their own bad decision making but also those who are the victims of loan sharks in the poorly regulated loan market.
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.
A deep interpretation of life and work of Czech painter Alén Diviš (1900 - 1956), the film is not a mere portrait or a profile. It is a subjective and abstract picture of his voyages across the world, it is a substance of creative moments. The artist's existence and experience is reflected in moments linked up with the lines of his travels around the world.
Sarajevo '94
A documentary essay about blasted time, hollowed-out houses and life in an occupied city ten years after the Olympic Games. The film features a minimalist score by Jiří Durman and is almost without words.
That's What America Is Like
Coast to coast across the United States with truck driver Pepík Svoboda.
Mushroom
A film essay which tries to explain nature, science and civilization through the structure of fungus. At the beginning, there was the confirmation of a theory which said that all plants in a single ecosystem are connected to each other through microscopic mushroom fibers. The film also views the mushroom as a metaphor...
Loan Shark
Usury - a phenomenon which has spread through the Czech Roma community in the past few years.
The Concrete Waltz
Gabčíkovo-Nagymárosz - for some, it is the construction project of the century, for others, an anti-environmental monster damaging and spoiling the landscape for many decades to follow.
Lost Holiday
A documentary detective story. Lada, a Czech traveller, finds by chance a dirty suitcase in a Swedish waste bin. It contains only a very carefully packed plastic bag full of film rolls. Lada takes all of the 22 film rolls home to Prague and has them developed. There are 756 fascinating photos from a trip of seven Asian men, probably from China. Lost Holiday tells the story of the search for these unknown tourists, based only on the lost photographs. We would like to give the photos back to them. And so the unknown men from Asia become guides on our exciting journey as we search through the lost photos and also for the nature of contemporary man.
Requiem for Noman's Land
Libavá, a part of the former Sudetenland, saw the presence of home and foreign armies which severed people's connection to the land. About the land sacrificed to the armies.
Life in Feathers
A documentary film about the boundaries between life and theatre - circus art on the stage, on a trapeze, in a trailer or in a water canal... Several years in the life of the Contionuo theatre group from Malovice in South Bohemia.
Rules of the Game - Delimitation of Space
The project entitled Rules of the Game developed into a series of institutional portraits. The first part Defining the Space takes place during the NATO Summit in Prague in 2002. It deals with the specificity of such a meeting, where every detail is planned and prepared well in advance, including the results. The event itself becomes a performance for the media that are supposed to(re)create the human dimension of the event and the organization. The film is composed of detailed descriptions and shot with a certain distance that offers a different perspective of the events.
Moment of Fame...
In his documentary report, director Martin Řezníček shows - through the story of Petr Markyzek - the situation during and after the floods in the Czech Republic in 2002. He also examines the superficial picture that media presented at that time. Petr Markyzek experienced his moment of fame when TV screens and newspapers showed him floating on the furious river on a wooden beam. The director confronts the picutre presented by media with the real story of the man who was just saving his life and who lost everything during the floods. The film is structured so that each part is named after Beethoven's 5th Symphony; at the end of the film, the Mayor declares that the flood situation is fully under control.
Jan Křížek, Sculptures and Bees
An existentional and artistic film about the almost forgotten sculptor, painter and beekeeper Jan Křížek, an artist in the Art Brut movement. About life with art in post-war France and also about Jan's wife Jiřina Křížková.
Brussels 2058
1950s was a time of the biggest repressions by the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, and yet it was possible to create a national showcase that became an unexpected spectacle at the Expo 1958 exhibition; the products, crafts and design presented in Brussels became a social phenomenon, described vividly, along with the paradoxically free work in the oppressive atmosphere behind the Iron Curtain, by the authors and visitors to the exhibition in a film that utilizes archive materials.
The Beethoven´s Waltz
The controversional construction of the Hydroelectric Power Station Gabčíkovo-Nagymárosz seen as a clash of views of the politicians who decided its finish.
The Mordor Chorus
Film on the punk scene, marihuana, Tolkien and the weight of the past. Czech musicians . Jim Čert and Jaroslav Erno Šedivý between San Francisco and Prague.
A Family in the Desert
A documentary which attempts to get close to the everyday life of nomadic Mongolian family living in the Gobi desert.
The Glory of the Republic
The Prague Uprising in 1945 free of a few myths, superstitions and historical falsifications.
Front Women
The interpretation of history is guided by the momentary political situation. Martin Řezníček realizes an attempt to demolish certain present controversies in a film that follows the destinies of women on the Eastern Front of World War II.
Alen
An in-depth interpretation of the life and work of Czech painter Alén Diviš (1900 – 1956) is not merely a portrait but a subjective and abstract depiction of the painter’s travels through the world, filled with creative moments. The artist’s existential experience is reflected in these moments, linked up by the lines of his voyages across the world. The director went to France, Morocco and the United States to record places that once inspired the artist, the landscapes and the walls, capturing their essence, even in a single shot, one brief glimpse. The film develops through the tension between Řezníček’s contemporary perspective, his documentary invention, and Diviš’s original works, his drawings and fragmentary writings. This seems the only possible way to express the crucial moments of the artist’s story. The director also uses interviews with people who were close to him, and animations of some of Diviš’s drawings.
Shitcredit
You take out a loan and then have to pay several times over the loaned sum or you lose your house for a few thousand or you find yourself in debt for the rest of your life. Chang the rapper talks about "Shitcredit". Taking a glimpse into the workings of the system, this film follows the stories of people who are in debt owing to their own bad decision making but also those who are the victims of loan sharks in the poorly regulated loan market.
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.
Martin Řezníček (*1960)
director and cinematographer
Graduated from the Technical University (ČVUT), worked at the Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences. Later he joined the ČVUT film studio that produced technical and popular science programmes. After 1989 he began working as an investigative journalist and cooperated with Czech TV (Stíny, S-magazín, Nadoraz - TV investigative programmes).
In 1997, he graduated from FAMU, Department of Documentary Film, under director Pavel Koutecký, with the film Taková Amerika (1995), a documentary road movie about a truck driver, and a thesis about non-narrative devices in documentary film. For two years he also studied at the Department of Cinematography. Since 2002 he has been a lecturer at FAMU, seminar Investigative Methods in Documentary Film.
Filmography:
Requiem for Nobody's Land / Rekviem za zemi nikoho (1991) about a former Soviet military zone, Concrete Waltz / Betonový valčík (1993), an environmental essay about the Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros Dam, Sarajevo´94 / Sarajevo´94 (1994), an essay from a city under siege /Golden Ibis Award - Best Documentary Film, Ismailia IFF 1995, Best Student Film, Berlin-Potsdam FF 1995/, Mordochór (1999), a music documentary about controversial musician Jim Čert.
He has made several documentary films for People in Need, dedicated to minorities in the Czech Republic - Loan Shark / Úžera (2001) /Golden Kingfisher – Best Short Documentary Film at Finále Plzeň 2003/, Ming, Maggie, Wang… (2002) etc. Currently working on another documentary film for People in Need.
In addition to numerous TV documentary and investigative programmes, he was a director of the political talkshow Na hraně (1998-2002) and the debate programme for children Tykadlo (1999-2003). Since 2003, he cooperated with Czech TV as a producer, his projects include, for instance, Lost Holiday / Ztracená dovolená (2007) by Lucie Králová.
Other films: Moment of Fame / Chvíle slávy… (2002) /Jihlava IDFF and other international festivals/, premiere 2002, Czech TV. Farewell, Sun / Sbohem slunce (2002), about Czech artist Alén Diviš (premiere at the Jihlava IDFF, Czech Joy competition). Sláva republice… , a documentary film about the Prague uprising, 2004 Czech TV, RU - návrat nežádoucí, a documentary film about concentration camps, death marches and the will to survive - TV version, premiere 2005, Czech TV. Jan Křížek, Sculptures and Bees / Jan Křížek sochy a včely (2005) - a documentary about Czech sculptor and painter – Andrej Stankovič Award 2006. Life in Feathers / Život v peří (2008) /Jihlava IDFF/, a time-lapse documentary film about the boundaries between life and theatre. Spring 2008 - Alén, premiere of the feature film on Alén Diviš (2008). Director's cut of Jan Křížek, Sculptures and Bees - DVD release. AFO Olomouc 2008 - premiere of the experimental historical film Fronťačky (2008) about women who were on the Eastern front during WWII.
DOCUfilm Praha
N. A. Někrasova 2/649
160 00 Praha 6
N. A. Někrasova 2/649
160 00 Praha 6
Docu Talents From the East 2006 - 2006