Piemule

Jana Ševčíková / Czechoslovakia / 1983 / 43 min.

synopsis

The documentary follows an ethnographic portrait of a Czech minority that settled in Romania near Timisoara in 1822. The film captures the life of this isolated community throughout the four seasons. It shows how this enclave preserved its language, identity, and cultural heritage under the difficult conditions of Nicolae Ceaușescu rule. A powerful ethnographic documentary essay that carries moral depth and offers a unique perspective on the preservation of minority identity in difficult conditions.

biography

Jana Ševčíková is a renowned Czech documentary film director, screenwriter, and producer. She graduated from FAMU in Prague in 1983. Her documentary Old Believers (2001), portraying a Russian Orthodox community in Romania, received a Special Commendation from the Ecumenical Jury at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival and the FICC Don Quijote Award at the Kraków Film Festival. At the Ji.hlava IDFF, she presented her feature-length films The Rite of Spring (2002) and Gyumri (2008). In 2021, the festival honored her with the Award for Contribution to World Cinema. Ševčíková typically spends several years developing each of her films, striving to get as close as possible to the lives of her protagonists. Her works resemble poetry or meditation, filmed over many years, observing transformation and allowing viewers to perceive the continuity of human life. She demonstrates that film can serve as both an image of time and a form of contemplation.