- Occupation
Director - Country
Czech Republic
Škrdlant Tomáš
Looking For Good Death
All of us have to die. However, sometimes we may decide how to die. Various forms of dying: among euthanasia, hospital divider and hospice’s care. A one hour long documentary film search through stories of dying people for various forms of what once awaits everybody of us.
Many Voices
Non-governmental organizations, civic societies, etc. and their role in our society. People must carry the consequences of political decisions, therefore they should also be actively involved in the decision-making processes. Society cannot be reduced to the market and the political representation.
Love Your Enemies
The tale of a Swiss woman and a Czech man who changed the lives and worldviews of hundreds of people. After the Second World War, Přemysl Pitter (1895 - 1976) and Olga Fierz (1900 - 1990) rescued over 800 Jewish and German children from German concentration camps and Czech internment centers. For many of the kids, the encounter with Přemysl and Olga was a decisive factor in their lives, both in terms of career choices and spiritual orientation.
Mummies and Babies
Four stories about the rejection nad abandonment of small children, two of which show the children being accepted into their new families.
The Soul´s House of Mirrors
Tomáš Škrdlant tries to see the world of the mentally handicaped through their eye and from the point of view of their therapist.
Memory of Lost Villages
The autors of this video try to awaken, throw archive films and accounts of witnesses, the way of life in one of hundred villages which were eliminated in North Bohemia because of the mining.
Ashes on the Head
The environment of North Bohemia is a toll of our consumption. Would the ashes which fall on peoples´heads induce us to contemplate our own participation in devastation of the landscape?
What Do We Need to Be Happy
Teh film of the series "The recovery of the private enterprise in Czech Republic" focuses on system of insurance and insurance corporations.
Pictures from History of Industrial Revolution
This montage of archive stills and film materials searches for the roots of contemporary ecological crisis and finds them in an extreme evolution of industry, mining production and business enterprise.
Window to the Soul of the Dying
The quest to find out whether consciousness of death is important for life.
Refusing and Accepting
Docuemntary film on a group of four young physically disabled people and their approach to life.
Who Is Poor And Who Is Rich...
An anatomy of social distinctions in post-Communist society.
The Battlefield of Salvation
The video with a sub-head "Of Faith and Need" focuses on re-establishing the activities of the Salvation Army in Czechoslovakia.
A Long-Haired State Within a Blad Republic
In the autumn of 1968 some film-makers got together to present portraits of long-haired young men living a life outside the accepted norms. These same men encounter each other again after twenty-sex years.
Man to Man
A documentary film about the consequences of human cruelty and about hope, supported by the testimonies of tortured people and their psychotherapist.
Seeking the Wisdom of Old Age
On the basis of specific experiences of a few elderly people, the film reveals various forms of age and tries to give an integrating view of them.
Magical Power of Energy - I. Drug Addiction
The dependence of our civiization on the growing consumption of energy is compared to an addict´s craving for hard drugs.
Magical Power of energy - II. Hard and Soft Ways
There are two ways to every goal - the natural and active way of cooperation, or the destructive way. Human society is currently taking the latter way.
Magical Power of energy - III. Energy and Power
Large, heartless, centralized power plants lead a society to non-democratic and totalitarian practices.
Eco-History
Czech Television archive and participant testimony enable a comparison of the relationship to the environment and extent of civic freedom during the Communist and present-day regimes.
The Water Thinking
Musings on water as an element, with which we seek to coexist.
The Unwelcome
A documentary myth. Five stories about a journey from the Underworld. Since the early 1990s the director has been accompanying and filming five children, now adults, who were rejected by their parents and left in the maternity hospitals right after they were born. The state has taken care of them: from the material point of view they lacked almost nothing - only they lived in another world. Particularly during the Communist era, all children that were different were carefully kept out of sight, hidden in a kind of underworld, far from the rest of the society and its joys and sorrows. The protagonists of the film, however, surmounted the obstacles and entered our world: they are living independently, working, having healthy children, divorcing, and getting married again; some have even met their parents.
Přibližování
A documentary film about the dissolution of barriers that follows the work of volunteers and assistants who help people with physical disabilities.
I Am Like a Tiger
A Slovakian architect living in United Kingdom came to die in the Czech Republic. He chronicled his dying by drawings and paintings. The author's intention is to reveal nothing more before the film viewing.
Prague Needs a Revolution
An expanded version of the film from 2010 Prague Needs a Revolution. The film show the barriers in the city mass transit in Prague for disabled people, seniors, mothers with prams and in a discussion with Sherry Ramsey Schulz the situation is compared with that in Colorado (USA).
All of us have to die. However, sometimes we may decide how to die. Various forms of dying: among euthanasia, hospital divider and hospice’s care. A one hour long documentary film search through stories of dying people for various forms of what once awaits everybody of us.
Many Voices
Non-governmental organizations, civic societies, etc. and their role in our society. People must carry the consequences of political decisions, therefore they should also be actively involved in the decision-making processes. Society cannot be reduced to the market and the political representation.
Love Your Enemies
The tale of a Swiss woman and a Czech man who changed the lives and worldviews of hundreds of people. After the Second World War, Přemysl Pitter (1895 - 1976) and Olga Fierz (1900 - 1990) rescued over 800 Jewish and German children from German concentration camps and Czech internment centers. For many of the kids, the encounter with Přemysl and Olga was a decisive factor in their lives, both in terms of career choices and spiritual orientation.
Mummies and Babies
Four stories about the rejection nad abandonment of small children, two of which show the children being accepted into their new families.
The Soul´s House of Mirrors
Tomáš Škrdlant tries to see the world of the mentally handicaped through their eye and from the point of view of their therapist.
Memory of Lost Villages
The autors of this video try to awaken, throw archive films and accounts of witnesses, the way of life in one of hundred villages which were eliminated in North Bohemia because of the mining.
Ashes on the Head
The environment of North Bohemia is a toll of our consumption. Would the ashes which fall on peoples´heads induce us to contemplate our own participation in devastation of the landscape?
What Do We Need to Be Happy
Teh film of the series "The recovery of the private enterprise in Czech Republic" focuses on system of insurance and insurance corporations.
Pictures from History of Industrial Revolution
This montage of archive stills and film materials searches for the roots of contemporary ecological crisis and finds them in an extreme evolution of industry, mining production and business enterprise.
Window to the Soul of the Dying
The quest to find out whether consciousness of death is important for life.
Refusing and Accepting
Docuemntary film on a group of four young physically disabled people and their approach to life.
Who Is Poor And Who Is Rich...
An anatomy of social distinctions in post-Communist society.
The Battlefield of Salvation
The video with a sub-head "Of Faith and Need" focuses on re-establishing the activities of the Salvation Army in Czechoslovakia.
A Long-Haired State Within a Blad Republic
In the autumn of 1968 some film-makers got together to present portraits of long-haired young men living a life outside the accepted norms. These same men encounter each other again after twenty-sex years.
Man to Man
A documentary film about the consequences of human cruelty and about hope, supported by the testimonies of tortured people and their psychotherapist.
Seeking the Wisdom of Old Age
On the basis of specific experiences of a few elderly people, the film reveals various forms of age and tries to give an integrating view of them.
Magical Power of Energy - I. Drug Addiction
The dependence of our civiization on the growing consumption of energy is compared to an addict´s craving for hard drugs.
Magical Power of energy - II. Hard and Soft Ways
There are two ways to every goal - the natural and active way of cooperation, or the destructive way. Human society is currently taking the latter way.
Magical Power of energy - III. Energy and Power
Large, heartless, centralized power plants lead a society to non-democratic and totalitarian practices.
Eco-History
Czech Television archive and participant testimony enable a comparison of the relationship to the environment and extent of civic freedom during the Communist and present-day regimes.
The Water Thinking
Musings on water as an element, with which we seek to coexist.
The Unwelcome
A documentary myth. Five stories about a journey from the Underworld. Since the early 1990s the director has been accompanying and filming five children, now adults, who were rejected by their parents and left in the maternity hospitals right after they were born. The state has taken care of them: from the material point of view they lacked almost nothing - only they lived in another world. Particularly during the Communist era, all children that were different were carefully kept out of sight, hidden in a kind of underworld, far from the rest of the society and its joys and sorrows. The protagonists of the film, however, surmounted the obstacles and entered our world: they are living independently, working, having healthy children, divorcing, and getting married again; some have even met their parents.
Přibližování
A documentary film about the dissolution of barriers that follows the work of volunteers and assistants who help people with physical disabilities.
I Am Like a Tiger
A Slovakian architect living in United Kingdom came to die in the Czech Republic. He chronicled his dying by drawings and paintings. The author's intention is to reveal nothing more before the film viewing.
Prague Needs a Revolution
An expanded version of the film from 2010 Prague Needs a Revolution. The film show the barriers in the city mass transit in Prague for disabled people, seniors, mothers with prams and in a discussion with Sherry Ramsey Schulz the situation is compared with that in Colorado (USA).
Born 1943, graduated from FAMU film school (1962-66), then, during the communist censorship, he made documentary TV programmes about sport and motorism, for not to be entangled into pro-regime agitprop. Since 1990 he created more than 60 authorial documentaries, mainly with ecological, psychological and social topics. In 1996 he published a book Democracy of Nature, and at the Masaryk University in Brno he is giving seminars of non-linear thinking. He is a co-author of the book Hidden Truth of the Earth (Zdeněk Neubauer, Tomáš Škrdlant, Mladá Fronta, Kolumbus Edition 2005).
Born in 1943, graduated from FAMU, Department of Direction, in 1966. During communism, he made mainly television programmes. Since 1990, he has made more than 60 documentary films, dealing mostly with the environment, psychology or sociology. In 1996 he published Demokracie přírody (Democracy of Nature); runs seminars on non-linear thought at the Masaryk University in Brno. Co-author of the book Skrytá pravda země (The Hidden Truth of the Earth). STROMY V NÁS – 1989, about the similarities between trees and lungs
Filmography:
Short selection:
SPORTS AND POLITICS 1990
Top sport in the service of totalitarian ideologies from Hitler and Stalin to Husák.
ORWELL’S YEAR, or Memories of an Unrealized Future 1991
Comparison between George Orwell’s vision of the future totalitarian society in 1984, and the reality of the same year in communist Czechoslovakia.
NO MAN’S LAND - 1992 The roots of ecological devastation of Sudetenland after the banishment of the German population in 1945.
QUESTIONS BEFORE THE DELUGE 1992
Dialogues about global ecological threat with J.Y. Cousteau, Václav Havel, Erazim Kohák, Václav Bělohradský, Josef Vavroušek, Ivan Dejmal, Hana Librová and with several small children.
THE MIRROR MAZE OF THE SOUL (1992) A quest for the meaning of psychosis.
THE ASHES ON OUR HEADS 1993 Do inhabitants of Nothern Bohemia feel responsibility for industrial destruction of their country?
MEMORY OF LOST VILLAGES 1993
A story of Holešice, one of 112 villages destroyed because of coal-mining.
AS IF FROM ANOTHER WORLD 1994
Origins of an unusual animation film, reflecting the inner world of handicaped children. (for Channel Four Television, Great Britain)
WHO IS POOR AND WHO IS RICH... 1994
An anatomy of poverty and wealth in post-communist society.
For The Film & Sociology Association
A HAIRY STATE WITHIN A BOLD REPUBLIC 1994
About social non-conformity25 years ago and now.
For The Film & Sociology Association
HOMO ECONOMICUS 1995
A portrait of an american economist Gary Becker, who, during his visit of Prague, proposed to privatise Charles’s Bridge. For The Film & Sociology Association
MAN TO MAN 1995
Psychotherapy of tortured people.
WINDOW INTO THE SOUL OF DYING PEOPLE 1996
Is the consciousness of death important for life? For The Film & Sociology Association
SCHOOL OF DEMOCRACY? 1997
What the children in schools really learn.
ECOHISTORY – 2000 The environmental movement during the Communist era and now.
REJECTION AND ACCEPTANCE 2000
The life story of four handicaped children, abandoned by their parents.
SEARCH FOR THE WISDOM OF THE OLD AGE (2002)
The return of aging into our lives. For The Film & Sociology Association
LOSS AND RETRIEVAL OF ONESELF 2002
Drugs and spirituality – God or Devil? 7th Part of the If You Must, You Must? serial.
CHILD IN A HOSPITAL 2003
When a child feels his worst, we separate him from parents. Why?
THE RIGHT TO BEG? 2003
An almanac of Prague’s beggars.
WATER THINKING 2004
Offer of a different approach to reality.
LOVE YOUR ENEMIES 2005
The story of a Swiss Olga Fierz and a Czech Přemysl Pitter, who changed lives of hundreds of people. 76 min.
LIFE IN DEBT - 2006 When living in debt, are we not consuming our own future? 28 min.
SEARCHING FOR GOOD DEATH - 2006
All of us must die. Sometimes, we may have the chance to decide how. A “good death” – does it exist? 57 min.
WHAT ARE WE NOW, YOU WILL BE TOO ... – 2007 Third age in the third millenium. 28 min.
NOT-FORGETTING – 2008 Monologues of three women and two men. Memories of childhood in Holocaust. 43 min.
THE UNWELCOME – 2010 20 years in the lives of people rejected by their families and society. 95 min.
Local & Global: On the Meaning of Proximity – 2010 Economical localization in Czech republic and Great Brittain. 49 min.
Getting Closer – 2011 About melting barriers. 62 min.
I am Like a Tiger – 2011 Dying as the last hundred meters of marathon. 42 min.