25th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival
Nobody needs to know about this, he said
director: Ester Grohová
original title: Zůstane to mezi náma, řekl
country: Czech Republic
year: 2020
running time: 4 min.
synopsis
Personal testimony about the process of trauma treatment. The feelings of loss and insignificance are the realities of our everyday lives. There are some unprocessed emotions that need their space and reason. How does the personal artwork becomes political? What is depoliticizes it? What is our relationship with pain and our own body in context of accepting ourselves? Is it possible to transform pain into a positive signal of being alive? In it possible to breathe to self-consciousness? To experience a trauma again intentionally can help with letting go however it often remains not solved by society. Recasting of emotional and mental material from apathy and resignation to a hidden intimate confession and call for a change of society and a collective transformation of shame to pride, anger to strength and pain to sympathy.
Q&A with the director Ester Grohová and other authors of films in the Fascinations section:biography
Ester Grohová (1992) in her work often addresses topics of gender and different feminist approaches to current sociopolitical, technological and environmental questions. Her work is highly influenced by social networks and their impact on individual psyche and society. She mostly expresses her work through sound compositions, solo and collective performances and her own or found footage video.more about film
| director: | Ester Grohová |
| cast: | Ester Grohová |
| producer: | Ester Grohová |
| script: | Ester Grohová |
| photography: | Ester Grohová, Teodor Alabozov, Filip Peroutka |
| editing: | Ester Grohová, Teodor Alabozov |
other films in the section
Behind the curtain of the film strip the concreteness of images appears and disappears again with varying levels of visuals shifts and deformations. The sounds of the film’s movement mix with voices that give the scenes context but nevertheless prevent a reconstruction of the fable. – The story dissolves, and during this layering we move further away from it ever being one.
Wet Wedding
Jan Daňhel, Jakub Halousek
Czech Republic / 2017 / 24 min.
section: Fascinations: Exprmntl.cz
Czech Premiere
FilmACT looks at Jan Palach, who set himself on fire in 1969 to protest the occupation of Czechoslovakia. It offers an intimate look at his personal hell as he lay in pain in the hospital, interrogated by the police. The film combines existing footage, shots taken at locations associated with his final days, and recordings of the interrogations.
That Guy’s on Fire
Martin Ježek
Czech Republic / 2011 / 45 min.
section: Fascinations: Exprmntl.cz
World Premiere
The author uses film as an art-therapy tool to cope with traumatizing experience of her own. Told from a child’s point of view, the story builds on the symbolism of both common and uncommon objects, a clay body, a writhing snake or a metal means of payment, projected into the narrative structure of repeating motifs.
And Then He Just Stopped
Alexandra Sihelská
Czech Republic / 2019 / 6 min.
section: Fascinations: Exprmntl.cz
World Premiere
This journey in a static shot from Lubomír Lipský's Cirkus je cirkus (Circus Is Circus) explores the relationship between memory and visual history. A fragment from the visual database of the collective memory is accompanied by excerpts from an essay by Karel Kosík on the inability of Czechs to affect real politics through democratic elections.
Powerless Source of All Power
Zbyněk Baladrán
Czech Republic, Greece / 2018 / 8 min.
section: Fascinations: Exprmntl.cz
World Premiere
A video essay addressing the ambiguity of human identity, which defies self-improvement and colonisation techniques through mind management. By revealing the instrumental nature of these psychological techniques, the filmmaker resists reducing “happiness” to economic benefits. The polysemic nature of human subjects is emphasised in the film by the never-ending shifts between the performance and its recording.
Parallel Hopes
Lucie Rosenfeldová
Czech Republic / 2015 / 6 min.
section: Fascinations: Exprmntl.cz
World Premiere
Transforming the author’s film from the 1970s, the film trilogy captures a naked woman’s body in gentle motion iterations. The combination of abstract expressionism and the figural motif uses distinctive colours, rapid shape-shifting and the dynamics of the human silhouette.
Wild Eye - Annihilation of Space - Despite of Limitations
Petr Skala
Czech Republic / 6 min.
section: Fascinations: Exprmntl.cz
World Premiere
The revolution on Kiev’s Maidan as a close-up of the city without any broader perspective. Recycled amateur footage from the internet offers an ironic commentary on the spectacular narratives by which the media described events in Ukraine at the turn of the year. Randomly selected and shown out of context, the various sequences break down the events into individual, slow-motion fragments before reassembling them in an emotional collage of incomprehensible unrest and random moments on the street.
Silently Like a Comet
Anna Kryvenko
Czech Republic / 2014 / 8 min.
section: Fascinations: Exprmntl.cz
World Premiere
People’s limited view of the world often places the human perspective above the natural cycles. Visual details capture the egotism that often causes us to not see the essence of things, Together with an apt and uncompromising voiceover they call on us to become aware of the impact our actions have on our surroundings.
Water Pure Azure
Adéla Kudlová
Czech Republic, Finland / 2016 / 4 min.
section: Fascinations: Exprmntl.cz
A series of short videos – moving images with natural themes – is created using spatial models and staged photos without the use of digital manipulation. Emphasis is placed on newly emerging surreal, even absurd principles obtained through intentional interventions into the character of ordinary situations, objects, and scenery.
Landscape
Petra Sklenářová
Czech Republic / 2015 / 3 min.
section: Fascinations: Exprmntl.cz
World Premiere
This documentary found footage essay, made up of recycled video snippets, deals with the cold and detached depiction of war in the media and in cyberspace. During daily media operations, the terrifying, irrational, and monotonous machinery changes an event, giving it importance as needed. Yet it maintains a consistent distance from the comfort of our screens, oversaturated and dulled by an unsettling mishmash of images.
Listen to the Horizon
Anna Kryvenko
Czech Republic / 2015 / 22 min.
section: Fascinations: Exprmntl.cz
World Premiere
A documentary miniature illustrating the birth of rural mythology. As they talk about Jan Vizváry, a physically disabled resident of the village of Čáry in western Slovakia, a group of villagers gives rise to stories and tales that they witnessed or merely heard about. The boy with the deformed legs became the subject of observation and local sayings in which memories of World War II become intertwined with everyday as well as extraordinary events.
The village’s residents remember a big storm during which his father was hit by a tree, as well as the film scraps he collected and then screened at the local cinema.
Warped Ján
Petr Šprincl, Marie Šprincl
Czech Republic / 2013 / 17 min.
section: Fascinations: Exprmntl.cz
French-Mexican surrealist artist Alice Rahon made her only film - The Wizard - in 1947, which was lost before its first release. From this came a dream of a never-before-seen work, an encounter with a person who is unjustly forgotten, and an excursion to the landscapes of image, sound and imagination.
After the Magician
Lea Petříková
Czech Republic / 2020 / 18 min.
section: Fascinations: Exprmntl.cz
Czech Premiere
