On the Peaks of All the Beech Mountains

synopsis

A poetic experimental film about memory, violence and the heavy legacy of post-war ethnic cleansing in Czechoslovakia returns to the area surrounding Buková Mountain in the Broumov region, where women, children and the elderly were murdered or beaten to death in 1945. Through animation, archive footage and observational shots, it explores how the trauma of ethnic violence persists both in people and in the landscape.

“There are places where mistakes were made. The war ended, and the tables were turned. Those who had been at the bottom quickly gained the upper hand; pleas for mercy went unheeded; retribution took precedence over everything else.”

Source: etc. galerie

biography

Anežka Horová (1996) is a multimedia artist, director and photographer. She focuses on environmental themes and the aestheticisation of the relationship between humans and the natural world. Ji.hlava IDFF has screened her films Botanical (2021), Edible Water Bottles (2020) and Moss Ball (2018).

Klára Trsková (1992) is a film director and curator at the Czech National Film Archive. She holds a degree in Portuguese, film studies and Luso-Brazilian studies at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University. She works as a translator and conducts research in literature and film.

Both filmmakers graduated from the Centre for Audiovisual Studies at FAMU, and Ji.hlava IDFF has screened their collaborative films But Not for Ever (2023), which received a Special Mention from the jury, and Shores of the Same Sea (2025).

film details

director:	Klára Trsková, Anežka Horová
producer:	Klára Trsková
photography:	Anežka Horová
editing:	Anežka Horová, Klára Trsková
music:	Alexandra Cihanská Machová

contact

Klára Trsková
klara.trskova@gmail.com