Solos for Members of Parliament

Tereza Bernátková / Czech Republic / 2018 / World Premiere / 34 min.

synopsis

Twenty-one politicians reply to the question of how they view the Czech Republic’s future. The survey, built on the democratic principles of equality and freedom of speech, provides the same conditions for all of the interviewees and presents their uncensored and complete responses. However, this raw materials provides more testimony regarding the present than the future, as it unmasks the faces MPs and senators present to the public and demonstrates the rhetorical means they use to expand political power. Freedom is a double-edged sword depending on whose hands hold it. The same applies to media as a tool used for disseminating propaganda as well as for undermining it.

“The film shows the people behind mandates, trying to approach them on the condition that they have to approach us. To what extent is a different form of public meetings with politicians possible? To what extent are other worlds possible?” T. Bernátková

biography

Tereza Bernátková (1986) is a student of the Documentary Film Department at FAMU. Her films thus far include In Love With (My Own) State (2014, Ji.hlava IDFF 2014), he bachelor’s degree film Techsquat (2015, Ji.hlava IDFF 2015), and Jamal's Own Images from the Prison (2016). In them, the filmmaker explores the relationship between the individual and the system, and the transparency between the political and civil sectors.