- Occupation
Director - Country
Czech Republic
Sedláček Robert
The third installment in a loose trilogy. This episode focuses on the 1970s and 1980s, the period dubbed normalization (after the Soviets invaded in 1968 and socialism "returned to normal"). An engaging testament to the diversity of values.
Way to Power
Tissues of power inside political parties are covered by a veil of secrecy for non-party people. What decides that some members get to the top of the party hierarchy and others will always fail? What relationships, what written and unwritten rules dominate in closed microworlds of political parties? Robert Sedláček observes the hidden face of political power against the backdrop of parliamentary elections in June 2006.
Václav Bělohradský: Nobody Is Listening
Nobody Is Listening is an attempt to portray the philosophy of one of the greatest Czech thinkers of our time - philosopher, sociologist and essayist Václav Bělohradský. It is an opportunity to think about the current state of human existence in political, media, universal, social and personal contexts. Bělohradský agreed to the filming after a year of persuasion. The film documents the meetings of the philosopher and the director in different parts of Central Europe. It is built on the question about the nature of freedom in today's society when one can say anything without any impact: "In totalitarian regimes, one must be cautious about words because there is always someone listening. On the other hand, democracy is a regime where no one listens to anyone," says Bělohradský. The philosopher quite openly talks about his freedom in the academic world, about the meaning of his work in the digital age, about his place in Czech society after 1989, about the myths he once believed and the myths some Czech are not willing to let go. Why does the Czech public, political and artistic life often resembles a fake rather than a true story?
Gustáv Husák Centre Stage
Memories of eyewitnesses, a portrait of a left-wing intellectual viewed from different angles and illustrated with archive materials and a theatre mis-en-scene. A man who used power to promote the Communist Party policy in Slovakia only to become its victim when sentenced to life. A story of a career politic who became a representative of the Prague Spring when released, and then ended up being a president of oblivion, an icon of normalization and decay of the Czechoslovak state.
East
A portrait of an Ukrainian mathematics teacher and his pupil. Department fo documentary film, FAMU - 2nd year.
Natural Born Killlers II
About people who spend their lives working at slaughterhouses. FAMU, Department of Documentary Film (1st year)
The Eye - Glory to Winners, Honour to Lame Ducks
When the pursuit of victory cripples people.
The Normal World
Preparations of an amateur theatre presentation in Křenovice near Brno. Twenty amateurs try to project experiences from their own lives to Friedrich Dürenmatt´s burlesque comedy Hercules and the Augean Stable. - Deparment of documentary film, FAMU - 3rd year.
Miloš Zeman – Politician’s Obituary and a Celebration of the Vysočina Hills
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.