Filmy festivalu

...And I Didn't Run Away!
Žižka never ran away from battle, nor did the most famous confectioner in Šumava, Karel Sedlecký, heir to a family tradition, who survived forced conscription into the Third Reich, collectivization, and imprisonment in the 1960s. The story of the master confectioner, thanks to whom production in Sušice grew beyond national significance, shows how the communist regime persecuted its own talents.
director: Vladimír Mráz
original title: ...A já jsem neutíkal!
country: Czechoslovakia
year: 1989
running time: 12 min.

*Make a Wish as the City Falls
The layering of memories of four witnesses takes shape as a self-ironic fossil of a town disappearing under the weight of coal mining. When home falls, what is it that we wish to preserve?
director: Eliška Dobnerová
original title: *Padá město, něco si přej
country: Czech Republic
year: 2025
running time: 8 min.

1+1+1
Progress drives us forward. But where exactly is that? The trinity played a fundamental role in the creation of the world, shapes the dialectic of development, and echoes in our hesitation – yes, no, I don't know. Three characters, embodying this trinity of attitudes, walk the world in search of direction.
director: Ondřej Vavrečka
original title: 1+1+1
country: Czech Republic, Slovakia
year: 2024
running time: 65 min.

11:22
On April 4, 2025, thirty-eight minutes before noon, the Korean Constitutional Court removed President Yoon Suk Yeol from office. Black-and-white footage cut into vertical patterns and rotating targets captures the moment the verdict was announced and the vibrant atmosphere in the streets of the capital city of Seoul. The image, stretched in time into geometric structures, is accompanied by a noise track of collective emotion.
director: Myun Yi
original title: 11:22
country: Republic of Korea (South Korea)
year: 2025
running time: 4 min.

3723 km As the Crow Flies
Obtaining official documents represents a coveted symbol of freedom and security for migrants. But how do you navigate the administrative labyrinth, where even a poorly cropped photo can mean your application is rejected? Set in Athens, the film explores the relationship between identity, race, and European bureaucracy. “I reason like you. I think like you.”
director: Oksana Kobeleva Luyssen, Ysé Auguste-Dormeuil
original title: 3723 km à vol d'oiseau
country: Belgium
year: 2024
running time: 15 min.

9/64 O Christmas Tree
Materialaktion nr. 15 by Viennese actionist Otto Muehl is transformed in Kren's lively montage into a grotesque image of Christmas orgies centred around a festive table. The main course consists of flaccid genitals with a hard-boiled egg and an anus covered in béchamel sauce. A critical view of Christmas overeating meets an emphasis on excretion as a natural part of the biological chain of food consumption. The rhythmic alternation of shocking compositions of the Christmas table, albeit without accompanying sound, seems to invite the humming of carols.“Like most of his films, this one is extremely economical at a mere three minutes running time, this being perhaps the limit of what any audience would accept. (Not surprisingly, Kren had great difficulty finding labs to develop such material.)” — Gary Morris, “‘Sorry! It Had to Be Done!’ Radical Actioner Kurt Kren”, Bright Lights Film Journal, 1999Source: https://brightlightsfilm.com/sorry-done-radical-actioner-kurt-kren/
director: Kurt Kren
original title: 9/64 O Tannenbaum
country: Austria
year: 1964
running time: 3 min.

A bike, a plane and a cart
Julito slips away every afternoon in San Tranquilino, Cuba. The hours pass slowly until it's time to return home. On an island that seems frozen in time, he’s the only one who holds on.
director: Jhonatan Yamunaque
original title: Una bici, un avión y una carreta
country: Cuba, Peru
year: 2025
running time: 10 min.

A Capsized Boat
A self-reflective monologue accompanying images of loneliness draws us into an inner world composed of fragments of dreams, memories, and unfinished books, telling a fragmented story of loss, longing, and desire.“I can sometimes hear my house breathing through my mouldy walls. I try to look at the sky and the trees. And they look back at me with contempt.”
director: Tridisha Goswami
original title: A Capsized Boat
country: India
year: 2024
running time: 4 min.

A Festive Lunch
Everyone knows that frozen pork is best in summer, even in England. Only housewife Evička is unsure, so a TV guide advises her on how to prepare dinner from frozen meat so that František will enjoy it when he comes home from work. This educational film, presented from the perspective of a kind teacher, reveals the mechanisms and advantages of a progressive, centrally planned economy.
director: Vladimír Voves
original title: Sváteční oběd
country: Czechoslovakia
year: 1958
running time: 4 min.

A Grandfather
Quarantine with a politician – this is how one could describe the situation captured in the film A Grandfather. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the director continuously filmed his cohabitation with his own grandfather, the prominent conservative politician and former Lithuanian Prime Minister Vytautas Landsbergis. This observational film captures everyday life in their shared household, but mainly focuses on conversations between the two men, one of whom is recapping his career and the other is making a film, but is also a classical flute player. The result is a chronicle that blends everyday life, artistic expression, and statesmanlike declamation. In the quarantined isolation of both family members, the Lithuanian past is echoed in the recollections of Vytautas Sr. as he rummages through his old collection of notes, as is the COVID-19 present, which is announced on the television screen. The grandfather finally agrees to participate in a joint theatre performance combining music and political performance. “By trying to explain it you ruined it. Just like in music. There was some nonsense: ‘explain how to understand music.‘ You can explain it. And you’d be ruining it. The essence.“
director: Vytautas Oškinis
original title: Senelis
country: Lithuania
year: 2025
running time: 67 min.

A Place for the Soul
What helps teenagers with serious mental health problems return to normal life? A mosaic of stories from children and parents who have experienced hospitalization at the Opařany Children's Psychiatric Hospital shows the types of treatment that can help children return to a full life even after serious problems such as depression, suicidal tendencies, self-harm, or eating disorders.
director: Ivana Pauerová Miloševič
original title: Místo pro duši
country: Czech Republic
year: 2025
running time: 47 min.

A State Film
An analytical look at Enver Hoxha’s Albanian dictatorship, through archival materials originally created as tools of state propaganda. The film traces four decades of the country’s development, from the end of World War II to the end of the communist regime, doing so without commentary, using only images and montage. This approach emphasizes that the archive is not a neutral witness to the past, but an active agent that not only records history, but also shapes it. The selection of images combines chronology with thematic blocks that show the monumentality of mass parades and political rituals, as well as more intimate moments of the dictator, such as his drives in a black Mercedes. These motifs take on a symbolic value, and suggest the loneliness and isolation of power. The film raises the question of how forms of propaganda have changed, and to what extent today’s media images follow historical patterns. The result is a work that transcends the framework of national history, and explores the function of the image in the political sphere, and its ability to create collective memory.“Sejko’s documentary demonstrates how the archive is not just a repository of images, but a tool for interpreting and rewriting history.” — Bianca FerrariSource: Bianca Ferrari: "Film di Stato": un viaggio nelle immagini della dittatura albanese di Enver Hoxha.
director: Roland Sejko
original title: Film di Stato
country: Italy
year: 2025
running time: 78 min.
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