Open Fortress

This filmed survey of second-year students of the Documentary Department explores the conflicts that arise when a woman wants to study, possibly even set out along an academic career path, but at the same time longs to properly care for her family and children. The scenes portray the efforts of the female students, and their off-screen statements are interspersed with a contemporary commentary.

While on a trip with Ivan M. Jirous, Jan Ságl came across several dozen metal printers’ plates hanging out in the open landscape. A much-needed product in samizdat circles, the plates were being used to scare away birds. The film shows a sun-drenched landscape with scattered silver points arranged in random constellations like some kind of land-art. It is loosely inspired by Zorka Ságlová landscape interventions, which Jan Ságl regularly helped to realize and document in his photographs, and in which a large role is played by the juxtaposition of the landscape with objects of a more geometric nature

The “Dumpling Feast” was a private event held at the home of Dana and Jiří Němec on Prague’s Ječná Street. The idea for the event came from Ivan M. Jirous, who held the family’s dumpling recipe. Besides showing several people cooking and an improvised concert, the film’s main focus is on a “happening” by Jan Steklík and Karel Nepraš of the Crusader School of Pure Humor Without Jokes – the “measuring of the food.”

This visually refined film about the casting of bells is also a meditative portrayal of rhythm and time, physical matter, and the possibilities of narrative film. It is a conscious continuation of the legacy left by Jiří Lehovec.

A glimpse into the extraordinary life of a person who far exceeded the conventional perception of what a scientist is: he walked barefoot through the countryside wearing a pilgrim’s hooded cloak, engaged in passionate discussions that lasted for hours, joked and laughed, always friendly, interested in talking to anyone about anything.  Tomáš Škrdlant presents materials for the documentary film that they worked on together over the course of many years. Tomáš Daněk presents the scientific and philosophical works of Zdeněk Neubauer. ---Dílnu vedou / The Workshop is led by: Tomáš Škrdlant, Tomáš Daněk

This graduate project film uses zoom shots delving deep into the landscape to bring images of a smoking chimney and large mining wheel excavators. This portrayal of objects embedded in a landscape gradually being taken over by the army is a colorful visual poem presenting in-depth views of the life of passive nature, which is in sharp contrasting with iconic symbols of civilization.

An opening reception for an exhibition of jugs by ceramic artist František Maxera is slowly transformed into a wild alcohol-fueled party with an acoustic concert by the members of the Plastic People. Recorded at the U Lojzy pub in Prague’s Vinohrady district.

It is the late 1980s. Petr Mička and Jirka Imlauf are friends at the Faculty of Education in Ústí nad Labem. Two years still remain before the Velvet Revolution. What could their random participation in an unpermitted protest possibly achieve? And what happens after a random look into the Cibulka List of supposed collaborators 20 years later?

Documentary filmmaking is probably more of a challenge for FAMU’s international students than it is for many of those from the Czech Republic. As a result, their perspective of phenomena founded in local reality is that much more intense, as may be seen in this selection of their best works.---The Workshop is led by: Vít JanečekPresented films:Living Inbetween, dir. Nefeli Oikonomou Pantzou, Czech Republic 2016, 10´What Is Behind the Canvas?, dir. Haukur Hallsson, Czech Republic 2016, 12'Vernissage of Martin Fryč, dir. Ana Aleksovka, Czech Republic 2015, 13'Sarah’s Manifesto, dir. Nefeli Oikonomou Pantzou, Czech Republic 2015, 12'Atte, dir. Zachary Slouka, Czech Republic 2015, 9'It’s Possible that Everything is Possible, dir. Galina Stepanova, Czech Republic 2016, 13'Sassicaia, dir. Ívar Erik Yeoman, Czech Republic 2015, 11'

The exhibition Video Day, the first collective presentation of video art in the Czech lands, took place on June 11, 1989 at Julius Fučík Culture and Relaxation Centre (today’s Prague Exhibition Grounds) as part of the annual presentation of the Czech Association of Visual Artists.   The exhibition Video Day 1989/2018 was a reconstruction of the original 1989 exhibition which took place on September 4, 2018. Martin Mazanec as the curator came up with an idea of initiating a debate on historical forms of presentation, but also on potential preservation of moving images. The reasons why video art has been up to now avoided by large numbers of institutions and artists may be illustrated within areas representing the clash between socio-cultural and economic circumstances of the origination and existence of individual works of art.   Discussion with invited guests will be accompanied by fragments of works by artists exhibiting back in 1989: Věra Geislerová & René Slauka, Václav Hodan, Roman Milerský, 5D studio (Tomáš Kepka, Michal Pacina, Marta Karoliová), Radek Pilař, Pavel Scheufler, Petr Skala, Lucie Svobodová, Ivan Tatíček and Jaroslav Vančát.  

Heaven is an emerging feature-length documentary telling a story of 21st century China through an orphanage in a small village in northern China. The orphanage, which was founded and is run by Catholic nuns, formally illegal in China, accommodates over 100 children. All of them suff er from mental or physical disability. While the fi lm addresses, directly and indirectly, some of the biggest topics of modern China: one child policy, human rights, a lack freedom of religion, corruption or deterioration of human values in a communist regime, it is also a story about love

Using reconstruction methods and the protagonist’s personal commentary, this Flahertyesque documentary takes a look at the life of an 80-year-old man who is raising his three grandchildren, whose mother has died and whose father has abandoned them. It is not, however, merely a lecture about practical activities, but rather about the principles and values he introduces to the children.“In addition to a pure idea, Sýkora inserted immense and pure emotion into his film – love and admiration of a person, honoring his life and his work.” Antonín Navrátil