Fiat voluntas tua

In January 2020, Prague and Taipei officially became sister cities, and Taipei gave Prague a gift – a pangolin. This documentary was made before the formal signing of the contract. In the film, the director works to figure out why this particular animal was chosen and paints a portrait of both the pangolin and Taiwan in the process.

The current climate crisis is feeding into the massive spread of the bark beetle, and it is already clear that it cannot be stopped. Entire forests are being cut down all across the Czech Republic, leaving huge clearings in their wake, and after mammoth mining machines come in to do their dirty work, all that remains is desolate, suffocated land. “What we're demonstrating here is that it’s all just ‘a numbers game’ of who can mine the most cubic metres and what company can make the biggest fortune.” What problems will a new treeless landscape bring us? Barren landscapes are places we tend to look away from. This visually refined, black and white reportage film tries to convey the physical experience of mining and the clearings we create on a daily basis. It also poses an alarming question: “Do we really care about the forest?”

The first-year workshop of the FAMU Documentary Department is led by Vít Klusák, who, together with his students, will present both the concept of the seminar as well as the films resulting from it during the 2016/17 academic year.

Four consecutive linked symbolically imbued portraits of women of various ages – a 16-year old scout, a young mother of two, a mature woman, and a pensioner. In intimate proximity to the camera, each reveals their mental and emotional frame of mind and the current state of their womanhood.

Mini portrait of one place - atmosphere of solitude in the middle of the city - life change of one woman - water as an element. Short film poem flowing like a river with which our main character learns and learned to coexist.

Under the surface of the modern state of Israel there lie stories that are largely hidden from European visitors. One of these is the fate of Palestinian Bedouins in underdeveloped areas living in unrecognized villages. A meditatively experimental film by an Israeli-Czech team captures the atmopshere of these places and the tragic fates of some of their inhabitants.

With an international arrest warrant out on him, Russian artist Oleg Vorotnikov of the radical art group Vojna (Military Service), infamous for his politically engaged protest performances, is an alluring enigma for the young documentary filmmaking student. She attempts to learn more about him and his family through a series of (attempts at) meetings in Berlin and Prague.

A film about the grave robber Ondřej Jajcaj. Ondřej Jajcaj has been collecting human teeth since age 14. His collection includes the teeth of composers Strauss and Brahms. His private collection of dentures is supposedly the largest on Earth. Most frequently, however, he sets out for graves in the Sudetenland. He says that people shouldn’t collection paintings by famous painters, but their heads, so that they can tell their love: “Look, those are paintings from this head.” And yet he is a beautiful person. Like all of you...   "The portrayed subject is the grave-robber Ondrej Jajcaj – the owner of the largest collection of dentures, which includes the teeth of the composers Straus and Brahms. Judge not, lest ye be judged!" (Robin Kvapil)

With the help of a factual description of a series of consecutive actions between fire and sky, this short film seeks to answer the question of what’s going to become of us. And how an old man’s knee joint can transform into a whole new object in the most ordinary way.

A black and white portrait of cameraman and amateur radio operator Ladislav Prajsner who uses the popular OK2PAY American term on the airwaves. In this field, he is one of the best since he has managed to gradually establish radio contact with all the countries in the world. 

The exploration of the topic of womanhood starts of by the inquiry into the notion of the position of women in the familial structure in Bulgaria. The filmmaker delves into her mother’s upbringing, as well as her later professional career to seek out answers about their own mutual relationship informed by socio-cultural conventions.