- Occupation
Producer, Director - Country
Czech Republic
Zrno Petr
Worshippers of the Angel Peacock
This ethnographic documentary portrays the life of the Yezids, worshippers of an ancient religion from the area of Kurdistan. The Yezidian religion is religion of a small number of the Kurds and belongs among the oldest strata of the religious and spiritual life in the area known as Mesopotamia. Yezid communities live a reclusive life and never let people of different faith into their environment. The film director visited and filmed worshippers in Armenia, Syria, Iraq and Germany. The most sacred places of the Yezids are situated in the valley of Lalish, near Mosul in Iraq. The director managed to capture environments that usually remain inaccessible to foreigners.
The Legacy from Prémontré
Premonstratesian monastery in the town of Teplá was again brought to life when the friars moved back in 1990. In the devasted buildings they have been continuing with the activities of their community that had been interrupted.
Afghanistan - The Country of Peace and Swords
Czech filmmakers have visited the Afghan provinces of Logar and Wardak and shared the life in small combat outposts with U.S., Czech, and Afghan troops who fight the Taliban. The poorly armed insurgents are neither able to defeat the coalition forces nor to take control over cities. However, they can damage roads and other infrastructure, generally make life difficult for the Afghan administration, and maintain a shadow rule over a large part of the population. Their goal is to weaken the Alliance’s determination to keep fighting. Leading a war against the invisible enemy, how do the coalition forces manage to keep lines of communication open, protect the civilian population, and build schools? How is the cooperation working with local leaders?
This ethnographic documentary portrays the life of the Yezids, worshippers of an ancient religion from the area of Kurdistan. The Yezidian religion is religion of a small number of the Kurds and belongs among the oldest strata of the religious and spiritual life in the area known as Mesopotamia. Yezid communities live a reclusive life and never let people of different faith into their environment. The film director visited and filmed worshippers in Armenia, Syria, Iraq and Germany. The most sacred places of the Yezids are situated in the valley of Lalish, near Mosul in Iraq. The director managed to capture environments that usually remain inaccessible to foreigners.
The Legacy from Prémontré
Premonstratesian monastery in the town of Teplá was again brought to life when the friars moved back in 1990. In the devasted buildings they have been continuing with the activities of their community that had been interrupted.
Afghanistan - The Country of Peace and Swords
Czech filmmakers have visited the Afghan provinces of Logar and Wardak and shared the life in small combat outposts with U.S., Czech, and Afghan troops who fight the Taliban. The poorly armed insurgents are neither able to defeat the coalition forces nor to take control over cities. However, they can damage roads and other infrastructure, generally make life difficult for the Afghan administration, and maintain a shadow rule over a large part of the population. Their goal is to weaken the Alliance’s determination to keep fighting. Leading a war against the invisible enemy, how do the coalition forces manage to keep lines of communication open, protect the civilian population, and build schools? How is the cooperation working with local leaders?
A graduate of the Film and Television College (FAMU) in Prague, he has worked as a documentary film and television director since 1975, except the years 1985–1990 when he was banned from working in the art sphere. As part of his systemic interest in issues related to the Balkans, the Caucasian countries, and the Middle East, he has directed the following films: Fears and Hopes of Montenegro (Montenegro), People of the Kodor River Valley (Caucasus), Armenia: The Legacy of Gregory the Illuminator (Armenia), Nagorno-Karabakh, The Adventists (Dagestan), Haykakan Yegekhetsi (Syria), and the Believers in Angel-Peacock (Iraq). He has produced films on cultural issues and personalities, such as Intimacy, or 24 Minutes With Jan Koblasa (on a Czech visual artist of European importance), Petr Spielman, or the Awareness of Interlinking (where the then director of a museum in Bochum, Germany tells the story of one of the largest collections of Czech visual arts outside the Czech territory), and Emil Juliš's Unavoidable Things (portrait of an experimental and reflexive poet). He has been involved as a long-term collaborator in the Czech Television's education cycle Diagnosis.
Catalogue of Upcoming Czech Documentary Films - 2012