Zogatová Lenka

Borders Our Way
Can we find in ourselves inner borders of our identity, if there is no visible border set anymore? How can we understand our society in the time of disappearing borders, both real and imaginary ones? How is this general change reflected in our everyday life?World without borders – one of the most frequently mentioned characteristics of today’s global situation is explored by the filmmakers in a film BORDERS OUR WAY. Lenka Zogatová (writer, producer, executive producer) and Jan Gogola ml. (writer, director) chose a specific location to deal with these questions. The films deal with a life in Silesian region – a region that is geographically divided amongst Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. People living in this area speak similar dialects, yet are of different nationalities. The borders going through the region, separating it into three parts disappeared in January 2008 as the countries entered the Schengen space.The film is set in a place where the three borders meet. Tesin – Silesian region has many specifics – social and economic situation, culture, language etc. The people there live their lives „their way“ (“po našimu” means “our way” – which is also a name of the local dialect). In the film, we meet several personalities who, in their everyday lives, cross borders in a broader sense – a welding operator becomes an astronomer, a priest is an amateur football player, a police officer changes into „Mother Theresa“, a music teacher tries to tune the outside world, a chef cooks songs, a director of a kindergarten together with a retired accountant travel back in time 17th and 18th centuries, a former custom officer becomes a mystic…These people, living in a region divided among three states, where cultures, languages, nationalities and regimes have been mixing during past centuries, found their freedom and independence to cross not only the official borders, but also the borders between professions, nations, languages and cultures, particularly those we carry within ourselves.

Background
The music archive of sound engineer Petr Werner had been hiding a recording of singer Nico, a recording which was illegally produced at a concert in Kníničky in 1985. This recording sees the light of day in a form of a LP album in 2012, thanks to Lenka Zogatová. We witness the transformation of Nico’s music from the shape of accoustic renditions of the band URBAND produced by Tomáš Vtípil, to the deconstruction of the original recording in DJ sets of Austrian producers Knarz Ignac and Neary Hearty. The same concert took place in 1985 in free Vienna and was seen by land artist and photographer Jaroslav Abbé Libanský and Jiří Chmel - runner of the Nachtasyl club who immigrated to Vienna in 1982. All three artists meet in their activities of the Background project which commemorates the recent normalization history of Czechoslovakia and confronts it with the late „young underground“ in the small border town of Gmünd.

Mgr. LENKA ZOGATOVÁ(born 1956)Graduated in Theatre studies. She has been engaged in alternative culture since 1980 as manager of underground music bands, actress of Ochotnický kroužek theatre, and as a worker in various cultural institutions, e.g. Czech Centre in Bratislava. She performed in HaDivadlo and the National Theatre in Brno. For three years she worked as a dramatic adviser of Czech delegation and accompanying programme at the international theatre festival Bez hranic in Český Těšín. She is co-author of the script for the cultural documentary Myslím, tedy slam (Czech Television 2009). Since 2006 she has been head organizer of activities of the Czech slam poetry environment, also in the international context. In cooperation with Czech Television, she produced in 2011 the documentary Hranice po našimu, from director Jan Gogola ml. She currently works in civic association Fléda, from within she produced documentaries Hello partners (2011) and Background (2012) from director David Butula.

Hranice po našimu (2011) – director Jan Gogola ml., see http://www.dokweb.net/cs/dokumentarni-sit/clanky/tv-hranice-pro-nasimu-1396/?off=360Hello partners (2011) – director David ButulaBackground (2012) – director David Butula