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A New Shift

director: Jindřich Andrš

original title: Nová šichta

country: Czech Republic

year: 2020

running time: 90 min.

synopsis

The closure of the Paskov mine, 2017; drilling into coal mines in the Ostrava-Karviná district, once a tradition, is now becoming a thing of the past. The Nová šichta retraining program drives a laid-off miner, Tomáš Hisem, away from his pickaxe, jackhammer, football Baník matches and Padlock concerts and into the world of object-oriented programming. New opportunities and horizons lead to changes in his personal life and career. This tender portrait of an ordinary miner navigating his way through the labyrinth of the labour market reveals both the nooks and crannies of a performance-oriented society and the transforming industrial agglomerations. Strong will and determination prevail over the media simulacrum of retraining in an impressive struggle for the soul and the dignity of one working-class man.

biography

Jindřich Andrš (1994) is a debuting director and producer. He studied documentary film directing at FAMU and film studies at Charles University and Edinburgh Napier University. His short film The Last Shift of Tomáš Hisem earned him a Special Mention in the Czech Joy section at the 2017 Ji.hlava IDFF among other awards. Nová šichta - an intimate time-lapse portrait of a laid-off miner who decided to retrain as a programmer, is his feature-length debut. With A New Shift, he participated in international workshops for Ex Oriente, Doc Incubator CZ, and IDFA Academy. As a producer, he completed the short film Pripyat Piano - a poetic film from Chernobyl. Pripyat Piano received the Silver Eye Award in 2019.

more about film

director:	Jindřich Andrš
producer:	Milos Lochman, Augustina Micková
editing:	Lukáš Janičík
music:	Eliška Cílková
sound:	Šimon Herrmann
art director:	Jan Gogola ml.

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