- Occupation
Director - Country
Czech Republic
Sommerová Olga
A documentary love story. A mother and daughter's view of the relationships between eight couples from various generations over the course of a year. A search for what most connects people, and at the same time divides them. The daughter mostly looks at young couples who are still choosing their life partners. Her mother looks at couples who have come to terms with the decision they made long ago, or are learning how to. A mosaic of human fates connected by the same simple, and yet complicated, desire to love and be loved.
Medela, Latin for Help
A charity project led by Czech women supports the building of a school in Guinea, university education of Peruvian Indians and an orphanage for HIV positive children in Cambodia.
World´s End at the Heart of Europe
The filmmakers travelled to a dozen Czech villages to document the many types of inhabitants in all their complex simplicity, to witness their transformation, and to record local atmosphere. Set against the classic time frame of four seasons, the film follows the rhythm of life in the country: a band at a funeral, the silence of a winter village, people at home, at work, horses in the snow, a pub where the regulars play cards. There are those who find magic in the village life and in new experiences, while others resign themselves, often drunk, to the everyday grind. Gradually, the director focuses on just a few people whom she follows as they prepare to vote in the parliament election. It is interesting to see which politicians they will choose in the end. But then again, the harvest is about to begin.
DAMUHAMUFAMU
Former and current students discuss life at the three most prestigious Czech art academies.
Máňa Ten Years After
Filmmakers Olga Sommerová and Jan Špáta discovered Máňa in 1992 in a prison yard in Pardubice. At the time they made a film called Máňa for a television documentary series and the short documentary won wide acclaim. Ten years later Olga Sommerová returned to follow the life of the protagonist.
We Outlived Our Children
Looking into the grave of one's own child is considered by most parents the worst personal tragedy. In this country, there is no support group for people who had to go through such a tragic experience. The film presents the attitudes of parents who took the difficult journey from despair to acceptance. Their children died in car crashes, after serious illnesses, were killed or committed suicide. The film wants to help all of us to accept the inevitable and at the same time to strengthen our awareness of the importance of relationships and real values.
My 20th Century
Director Olga Sommerová examined the private lives of three Czech women born before WW2, during the time of the first Czechoslovak Republic. Important artists whose work more often wins recognition abroad than at home, the three women radiate energy and wisdom. Scenes from the lives of modern painter Adriana Šimotová, writer and journalist Lenka Reinerová and actor and vocalist Soňa Červená are superimposed on the backdrop of the 20th century history. For each of the women, history brought brutal treatment, conflicts with various totalitarian regimes, as well as many personal losses. Despite this, they managed to find the strength to live and create. Infused with the women's energy, optimism, wisdom and harmony, the documentary is all the more compelling thanks to the director's interesting approach to her subjects and the form she chose to construct it, revealing unexpected circumstances. The women not only tell their own story but also present an important historical testimony. The grim conditions of the times form a framework within which their fates interweave, their unique traits coming together to form a patchwork of the 20th century.
The Lost Soul of a Nation - The Loss of Tradition (Farmers)
The series of seven hour-long documentaries follows the life stories of political prisoners of the 1950s, but the subject is linked to present-day national soul. The series recalls national losses, the effects of which still persist, and focuses on specific segments of the population which felt the loss most keenly. The series recalls national losses, the effects of which still persist, and focuses on specific segments of the population which felt the loss most keenly. The loss was in human terms, the human pillars upon which democratic society rested and which were razed by the Communists. The elimination from social life of tens of thousands of people in certain categories resulted in the general impoverishment of the national soul. The current state of affairs is the result: many dynamic people simply "aren't available" - to be patriots, organizers, leaders. The film stresses that what Communist persecution sowed is still being reaped, and not only in the national subconscious. The loss of tradition, as the film explores, reawakens memories of the breakdown in the continuity of country lineage and the violent transformation of the countryside.
The Lost Soul of a Nation - Loss of Dignity (Soldiers)
Gripping testimonies of four young Czechoslovak army officers who were imprisoned in the political purges of the 1950s. Having graduated from military academy in the short period between the end of WWII and the start of Communist rule in 1948, they were charged with having allegiance not to the Communist Party, but to the institution of the military and its tradition as guarantor of national dignity. The four men describe in detail their ordeals and experiences in prison and the persecution that followed them even after their release. One of them tried and failed to escape from captivity twice, leading to harsher punishment. Another discovered religious faith, and later created a meditation garden dedicated to the victims of dictatorship. Another survived torment and solitary confinement. This is the first of the seven-part series Before It's Too Late, which chronicles the testimonies of victims of Communist persecution in Czechoslovakia.
Na zábradlí Theatre
The genius loci of Na zábradlí Theatre has attracted a number of creative artists whom the film documents over the theatre´s forty-year existence. Olga Sommerová dedicated her film to the memory of directors Jan Grossman, Evald Schorm and Petr Lébl.
The Lost Soul of a Nation - Loss of Decency (Women)
Documentary film on the crimes of communism committed on various social groups.
The Lost Soul of a Nation - Loss of Democracy (Emigrants)
Documentary film on the crimes of communism committed on various social groups.
The Lost Soul of a Nation - Loss of Responsibility (Intellectuals)
Documentary film on the crimes of communism committed on various social groups.
The Lost Soul of a Nation - Loss of Faith (The Church)
Documentary film on the crimes of communism committed on various social groups.
The Beggar´s Opera One More Time
A documentary film about the theatre Divadlo na tahu and the legendary rpoduction of Havel´s A Beggars´s Opera in Horní POčernice in 1975 which saw its new premiere after twenty years.
A Woman, Crime and Punishment
Film discovering the fates of those women who commited a crime and now remain at the Pardubice prison.
Yeah, I Was Still Alive
A portrait of Jiří Šlitr which focuses on the mysteries surrounding his death via the testimonies of his colleagues an relatives, set in the atmosphere of the time.
Allied by Folly
A story of four siblings that shelter fifteen children from children´s home in their families.
No Punishment, No Penitance
Confessions of political prisoners from the 1950´s giving views on guilt, punishment and repentance.
The Way Home
On the first domestic hospice in the Czech Republic, entitled The Way Home, which helps families resolved to care for their dying relatives at home. In addition to the relatives, the dying are accompanied by two women - dr. Marie Goldmannová and nurse Alžběta Mišoňová. Another two members of The Way Home civic asociation is painter martina Špinková and her husband - doctor and philosopher Štěpán Špinka.
Seven Lights
In her work the Czech director Olga Sommerová has repeatedly focused on the fates and testimonies of women. Her latest documentary sees Sommerová turn the camera on seven Jewish women, who share their experiences of the Holocaust and WWII. Their life stories take us to Terezín, Auschwitz and Belzec, where the monstrous annihilation of the Jewish population was seared into their memories. They also recall the resistance, in which they were actively involved. Each of them outlines her own method of surviving the Nazi regime, while they also explore their own behaviour, their failings and virtues when confronted with such extreme situations. Furthermore they draw attention to the dangers inherent in the behaviour of those who advocate Nazism and extreme nationalism today. The testimonies of these women increase in importance with the passing of time, which gradually carries away the evidence of the injustices they have seen.
Twenty-One Spokespersons of Charter ´77
At a time when Czechoslovakia was controlled by the Communist Party under the eye of the Soviet Union, the Charter 77 initiative represented the civic opposition that the situation required. It was composed of an intellectual elite of academics, artists, former Communist Party members, religious believers, agnostics, Marxists, and Trotskyites. Olga Sommerová's documentary triptych looks at the spokespeople for the Charter, from its inception to the end of its activities in 1992. Their task was to publish topical declarations and documents. Sommerová shows how the events of the Prague Spring, the occupation of Czechoslovakia and the subsequent show-trial of The Plastic People of the Universe rock group led to the creation of a dissident movement that was recognised both at home and abroad. Although the government never ceased monitoring, interrogating and imprisoning the Charter's signatures, video records and declarations such as A Few Sentences (Několik vět) continued to be produced, urging the citizens of Czechoslovakia to resist the regime.
Keep the Rhythm!
Using the music of Bohuslav Martinů, The Chap-Book project was inspired by Rhythm Is It!, a successful social and art project developed by the Berlin Philharmonic. Working with the graduates of the Duncan Centre, the Czech project aimed to open up the process of art creation also to children who have no experience with the arts. As one of the outcomes of the project, the film shows the children's transformation as they acquire better dancing skills, become actively engaged in the show and express their excitement and joy from the success of the show and a big applause at the sold-out venue.
Dancing into Solitude
A musical and documentary composition about a life of the biggest Czech heroineof the 20th century, an enemy of the Nazi and the communist regimes, Dr. MiladaHorakova, the only woman who was executed during trumped-up trials directed by the felonious communist regime in the 1950's. The film does not only look into a making of an opera production, it also reflects a fate of a brave woman leading an unequal fight with a totalitarian power. The film is built upon an opera staging of the trial, with authentic archive footage of the trial and interviews with creators of the opera.
Věra Čáslavská - 68
The film about Věra Čáslavská is an evaluation of her life. With seven gold and four silver Olympic medals, she is the most successful Czechoslovak female athelte as well as the fourth most successful Olympic female athlete in the world. After her breathtaking victory in Mexico City in 1968, she was announced the second most popular woman of the planet after Jacqueline Kennedy. In 1968, she signed the 2000 Words Manifesto. Despite her enormous fame, which she deserved for her incredibly hard work and endurance, she lived a troubled personal life. Her life story reflects the situation in Czech society, both in the communist regime and after 1989. Always actively involved in building a healthy civic society, Čáslavská's life story is truly unique and remarkable.
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.