Penzisté

Angelika Hanauerová / Czechoslovakia / 1965 / 8 min.

synopsis

A socially critical documentary based on the contrast between the images and testimonies of pension applicants – destitute and lost in the corridors of the Social Security Institute – and the mechanical detachment of the administrative procedures that determine their fates. In this context, the final statement by a pensioner at the counter strikes an ironic note: “I’m completely satisfied with everything.” Some shots make intertextual references to progressive works from the preceding period with Kafkaesque undertones – the journey along the ceiling of the factory in Schorm’s Courage for Every Day (1964) or the ride in the filing lift in Juráček’s A Character in Need of Support (1963). The work is a documentary exercise by second-year students of the Department of Documentary Film.

biography

Angelika Hanauerová (1943–2019), daughter of architect Karel Hanauer, graduated in feature film directing from FAMU in 1968. While at FAMU, she also made the film Dostal jsem nápad udělat kočku (I Had an Idea to Make a Cat, 1967) and dedicated Zvukový film o FAMU (A Sound Film about FAMU, 1969) to the FAMU community. She signed the dissident movement’s Charter of 1977. After returning from the USA, she went on to make socially engaged documentaries for Czech Television in the 1990s.