Wolves at the Borders

In open testimonies by husbands, wives, and lovers, this highly stylized introspective fi m presents different forms of marriage and searches for the meaning of this institution in our post-consumerist society. Through a visually dominant text conversation between the central couple R. and B., the viewer gradually begins to identify with the stories of anonymous heroes who balance fulfillment of love and sexuality in relationships, cope with their frustration, or describe the rediscovered value of marriage. Metaphors and collages reflect the filmmaker’s perspective, and ultimately a surprising twist of life connected to the filming. “Infidelity is actually a boring topic, yet it can be quite telling about one.” B. Jíchová Tyson

Martín Perano is a young Argentinean piano virtuoso and composer whose life has been turned upside-down by mental illness. He spent the past few years in the largest psychiatric hospital in South America, El Borda in Buenos Aires. After his release he returned to the nearly empty house of his parents, where his biggest concern was to learn to live without walls and to go back to the piano, which he played every day in the institute. The director patiently observes Martín’s return; in interviews with his loved ones, he learns more about Martín’s past, lyrically approaching the inner workings of a person obsessed with creation, capable of taking strength from their own hypersensitivity. “The other patients sat in respectful silence listening to this curious sonata of fingers rapping the table. After a few minutes, Martín finished playing. Strong emotions could be read in the eyes of his audience, as though they had been listening to real music.” A. Benki

In the twilight of consumer democracy, priestesses of love come to life and wait for their customers. Prostitutes, sales clerks, warehouse workers, non-stop bars, dance clubs, musty flats. A subculture of insomnia that lives the eternal night. Unceasing dissatisfaction with one’s life and unfulfilled desires. The rhythm of the nocturnal life of consumption and rapid gain, soaked in amphetamine and cheep alcohol.Assembly-line production of gaming machines, tools for the consumption of human disorder and unhappiness. The lottery of prostitutes and nighttime wandering that defies angelic choirs of purity and modesty. Sonatas next to cheap hot dogs, shampoo, and the hopelessness of housing projects.

Abuse against seniors affects up to twenty percent of older Czechs. This vulnerable group often struggles for years with mental and physical abuse from their loved ones. Through focused, confidential, and harrowing interviews with three women and one man, the documentary recounts the situations in which these people find themselves as they near the end of their lives. Terror hidden behind the walls of their home gradually escalates into physical injury, litigation, and loss of property. In the film, they talk about how they coped with their children’s betrayal as well as their helplessness, knowing that society will not adequately defend them. “Our protagonists are disappointed by those they raised and for whom they cherished love – their children. It is difficult to experience it, and even more to admit such feelings to oneself and others. This is a more common trend than we would assume, though.” I. Pauerová Miloševićová

The documentary reflects on thirty years of renewed democracy by way of a court hearing, whose subject matter. The film brings together actors in the roles of the plaintiff, defense counsel and judge with real people who represent Czech society as spectators, witnesses and members of the jury. The film is clearly inspired by a court hearing regarding a two-generation dispute filmed by Czechoslovak Television in 1966. “The story of an idealism and naivety of one and rationality of others. Review of thirty years of a divided society, who did not know about it. ” R. Sedláček

A surprisingly intimate portrait of how the dream of running one’s own business can take on monstrous contours. Managed by the father of one of the singers, over the course of five years the girl band 5Angels had reached the gates of pop fame. But it is a path paved not only with the songs of Michal David, but also with the dogged determination of a man who loses any notion of where his role as manager ends and his role as parent begins. An emotionally moved Karel Gott, five angelic girls, and one overly involved father, thanks to whom the behind-the-scenes pre-Christmas atmosphere melts away just as rapidly as the fat should disappear from the belly. “A singer can’t be a lard bucket!”

Josef Hasil, nicknamed King of the Bohemian Forest, was a cross-border smuggler between communist Czechoslovakia and the West, and later an agent for the CIC news service. His actions are the central theme of a film created using narrative animation resembling modern film noir, conversations with witnesses, and shots of the beauty of the mysterious Bohemian forests. In places, the documentary also takes on the qualities of a Hollywood action film, which contrasts with the burden of moral decisions of an individual and the relentless power of the totalitarian regime. Almost detective-like investigation is framed by the Bohemian myths and legends that are still told of the man today. "Kings of Šumava poetically explores the duality of hero, villain and reunites former Czech immigrant Vlasta Bukovsky and infamous Czech people smuggler Josef Hasil." K. Kelly

FilmCONFLICT is divided into seven chapters made by first-year FAMU students and their teacher Vít Klusák. Each segment reports on one group involved in a neo-Nazi march (and its blockade) in Brno: right-wing radicals, blockaders, Roma, policemen, attendees of political rallies, journalists, and the uninterested but all-knowing animals at the zoo.

Poet Daniel Hradecký is the main actor of of this inter-genre film about a journey into the depths of his own consciousness. The black and white documentary parable looks into the human soul with interplay of sounds and raw images. Several episodes take place in the rough landscape of North Bohemia, accompanied by dramatic music. Their narrative includes fragments of the poet’s texts and his memories, reconstructed in the film: Daniel starts a shift in a factory, or he meets the devil in the dark. The film maps the poet’s inner world, and sinks deeper and deeper to the bottom of the raw imagination with him. “Is the man who likes dreaming happy?” A. Hospodářský The protagonist of the film, Daniel Hradecký will be reading poems as well works of other author after the screening of the film on Friday 25.10 in 18:00 in the Café Etage. 

FilmREVOLUTION is an original reflection on the events of November 17, 1989 as perceived by the Czech society. The film reconstruction culminates in the clash of demonstrators and the Public Security. However, the social surge of those days has become but an empty image. To the extras participating in the event, the revolution game is but an attraction in a time when freedom is taken for granted but rarely taken advantage of.

An intimate portrait of a director who almost involuntarily devoted her life to film, and who was willing to sacrifice three marriages and motherhood to the cult filmmaking. The film portrays Drahomíra Vihanová as a hard-headed shaman of images who shares her religion from its early days of being damned by the regime for Zabitá neděle (Squandered Sunday, 1969) to the public execution of Zpráva o putování studentů Petra a Jakuba (The Pilgrimage of Students Peter and Jacob, 2002). An existential essay that, in contradictions and paradoxes, fluctuates between documentary and acted film, between adoration, forgetting, and cats.

FilmCONSTRUCTION visits the site of an unfinished railway in the inhospitable Russian taiga. Sixty years ago, thousands lost their lives here, but work was halted soon after Stalin’s death and today all that remains are rusting remains in the swamps. Eyewitness testimony is combined with a meditative boat trip and traces of asocial utopia.