Let's play soldiers

The joys and sorrows of artist František Skála is captured in this brightly colored film. Member of the Sklep theatre group, founding member of the Tvrdohlaví art group and the secret group B. K. S.  is renowned for his creations from found and natural objects, creating new works in his Prague atelier and at his rural farm, demonstrating against the government, and performing with Tros Sketos.

A montage of scenes exploring the meaning of existence, which during its brief stay on Earth finds itself controlled by a higher power, a parasite that controls all of Life, shaping it and determining time. Footage of thousands of chicks killed just hours after their birth alternate with scenes of a flowering summer garden.

A film about a young man discovering himself though his transsexuality. While on most days, he's a man named Víťa, sometimes he becomes a woman called Aurélie. We witness a unique insight into his physical and mental transformation with the participation of Libuše the photographer. The film consists of Libuše's photographs and conversations of the two protagonists.

A topical film created for the anniversary of the Warsaw pact occupation cleverly combines 3D animation and actual archival footage. The film’s main character is a Russian solder who looks back on the invasion and comes to a paradoxical conclusion of how his life could have been very different.

Legendary Czech documentary filmmaker and head of FAMU’s documentary department Karel Vachek returns to painting after 35 years. On the way from his exhibition in Tišnov, he shares his memories and distinctive views on art and life.

Mum is. Mum lives. There’s a scar on her chest, but don’t pay any notice. There’s a heart inside that is beating. Metal against metal. A mechanical aortic valve to replace the one that was all used up. The heart beats on. The film poem gets beneath the surface, opening up the skin through projection. It shows a process that gives new life.

A film about staging a theater performance 70 years after the events of 1948, as well as the real theater production that the whole communist coup was. Puppets seemingly without puppeteers, puppets moving about of their own free will - this is how communist comrades were and this is exactly how they’re presented in this film.  

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.

In this highly personal film, the director returns to a French Christian community in order to relive thoughts and feelings from several years prior, and to see the woman whom he loved but from whom he had been forcibly separated. Literary journals blend with video, physical love with spiritual love.

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.

This portrait of the filmmaker’s grandfather, stage manager of the Laterna Magika and slightly eccentric intellectual, is stylised into a surreal performance. In a small space, the film builds an original formal structure that freely oscillates between playfulness and illustration, childishness and seriousness, the Buddhistic here and now and sharp patterns of thoughtful post-production.