A new catalogue of documentary films will be presented September 25 at 10 a.m. at Kino Světozor. Filmmakers
there will present 10 selected documentary projects which will begin their journey to viewers later this year or early
next year.
“The catalogue includes 101 documentary films in development, production or post-production. Among them there
are portraits, investigative reports, socially engaged documentaries, authors’ testimonies, personal chronicles,
documentary novels and thrillers,“ says Magda Španihelová from the Institute of Documentary Film. “The formal
heterogeneity of Czech documentary film comes from a strong tradition of an auteur approach to recording and
interpreting reality. Perhaps thanks to this, Czech documentaries enjoy a stable and highly appreciated position in the
cultural and social context of our country.”
“It’s the most complex and actually the only annual summary of the state of Czech documentary production, and
years of experience have convinced us of its usefulness for filmmakers, journalists and anyone interested in
documentary production,“ adds Jana Cernik from the Czech Film Center.
Documentaries will have an opportunity to get other awards at a domestic scene this year. The Czech Film and
Television Academy decided on the adjustment of the statute of selected categories for the annual award Czech
Lion. Also authors of documentaries In categories camera, sound, edit and music can be nominated from 2012.
Czech documentaries have been a successful film sector for several years. In recent years, they have earned more
awards at international forums than Czech features. Since last September, 19 new documentaries have been
presented in Czech cinemas. In addition to Matěj Mináč’s commercially successful Nicky’s Family, the highest
admissions for this period belonged to Martin Mareček’s Solar Eclipse, Helena Třeštíková’s Private Universe and
Olga Sommerová’s portrait of Olympic athlete Věra Čáslavská, Věra 68.
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Top 10 documentaries in Czech cinemas (9/11–7/12)
Title Distributor Admissions
1. Nicky’s Family Bontonfilm 20 152
2. Solar Eclipse Verbascum Imago 11 487
3. Private Universe Aerofilms 6 634
4. Věra 68 Cinemart 6 305
5. My Father Voskovec L. Rudinská 4 475
6. Tomorrow Will Be Better Aerofilms 3 942
7. Generation Singles Verbascum Imago 3 656
8. Race to the Bottom Verbascum Imago 3 131
9. EM and HE Verbascum Imago 2 554
10. A Catapult of Fate V e r b a s c u m Imago 2 248
(According to UFD data. Acomplete table is attachmed.)
More than 40 documentaries were presented at international film festivals and exhibitions in 2011 and 2012 (until
September). The most successful documentary of the concluded season was Solar Eclipse, which screened at 10
festivals. The most successful document in terms of festival participation in the last 12 months was Chronicle of
Oldřich S. Rudolf Šmíd’s animated short documentary was presented at 12 festivals and won special recognition at
two. Helena Třeštíková’s Private Universe and Šimon Špidla’s Into Oblivion also received great acclaim.
Please find a complete table in the attachment.
Among the 10 documentaries that will be presented September 25 are many which have the potential to appeal to
audiences at home and abroad.
Pecking Order, created by participants of the Inventura film workshop, offers an original glimpse into the world of
mentally disabled and follows on the success of the workshop’s previous film Earthlings, Who Are You Voting For?
Little Hanoi offers an intimate glimpse into the world of two Vietnamese girls struggling with their future in the
‘exotic’ Czech Republic.
Among other upcoming documentaries are portraits of figures from politics, culture and art: Václav Havel, Ivan
‘Magor’ Jirous, Bořek Šípek, Karl Reisz and H. Gordon Skilling. Havel’s death created a wave of a filmmaking interest.
Petr Jančárek comes with Part 2 of his intended trilogy, Václav Havel, Prague – Castle 2, in which the filmmaker will
map Havel’s early activity as president. Helena Třeštíková will present portraits of two artists, Vojta Lavička: Up and
Down.cz and Jakub Špalek: A Life With the Jester. Jan Gogola, jr.’s film Mythmaking is a personal portrait of
Kateřina Šedá.
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Adolf Zika’s film The Czech Land, Your Home! is a domestic analogy of the global Week of Life project. The creators
of the Czech film, which will be released November, asked citizens of the Czech Republic to record one day in May.
At the same time, Zika’s crew were mapping life around the country.
Presented projects:
The Czech Land, Your Home!
Director: Zika Adolf
Producer: Doležal Pavel
Production company: ZIPO FILM production, s.r.o., Czech TV, RWE - Jihomoravská plynárenská
Film one day of your life from your perspective and become a co-author of the feature documentary The Czech Land,
Your Home! With these words Adolf Zika appealed to the nation to co-operate on his project. In addition to
contributions from ordinary citizens, he also dispatched his own crews to every corner of the country on May 11,
2012 . The improvisation and spontaneity of amateur filmmaking interacts with professional cinematography and
creates an extraordinary film about one ordinary day in our country.
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Pecking Order
Director: Bubeníčková Kateřina, Bystřičan Ivo
Producer: Plešák Pavel
Production company: Czech TV, Inventura o.s.
The main figures in this rather unusual documentary are mentally handicapped participants of a film workshop
organized by Inventura, an association that helps integrate mentally handicapped persons into the society through
art, management and directed by Ivo Bystřičan. Pecking Order is inspired by the protracted government crisis of
2012, escalating corruption and unrelenting civic protests. The mentally handicapped crew tries to find their own
solution to the government crisis. They search for a new model of governance and distribution of power, contrasting
the protestors with various social animals.
František Kriegel – The Harvest of Conscience
Director: Janeček Vít
Producer: Poláková Jarmila
Production company: Film & Sociologie, Czech TV
Physician and politician František Kriegel is connected to many points of 20th century history: the Spanish Civil War,
the victory of the allies in South-Eastern Asia, the beginning of the communist regimes in the Czech Republic and
Cuba, the Prague Spring of 1968 and Charter 77. This film is not only a reconstruction of Kriegel’s life but also focus
on winners of the František Kriegel Prize: Jakub Polák, František Lízna, Alena Dernerová and Libor Michálek. It is a
survey of what remains of the efforts of Kriegel and others like him, humanist and cosmopolitan representatives of
the political left of the 20th century.
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Vojta Lavička: Up and Down.cz
Director: Třeštíková Helena
Producer: Třeštíková Hana, Třeštíková Helena
Production company: Trestikova Production, Czech TV
The main character of this long-term observation documentary is the Roma musician and activist Vojta Lavička, a
great violinist who, apart from his music, is concerned with problems of his ethnic group. He is active in the media,
dealing with social issues in radio and TV, and holds fast to the issue that the life itself assigned to him: the ethnic
minority and the struggles of their co-existence with the majority. Vojta also lives his private life and deals with his
position in society and in the music scene.
Jakub Špalek: A Life With the Jester
Director: Třeštíková Helena
Producer: Třeštíková Hana, Třeštíková Helena
Production company: Trestikova Production, Czech TV
This long-term observation documentary was shot over the course of 23 years, following the fate of theatre actor
Jakub Špalek. The first days of shooting took place in autumn 1989 when Jakub, then a DAMU student, became one
of the initiators of the Velvet Revolution. Jakub’s fulfilled his dream of establishing his own theatre, and today he is
the head of the Kašpar Theatre in Prague. The film captures the actor’s hard life of running an independent theatre
and his private life with its intimate and fundamental personal dramas.
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Mythmaking
Director: Gogola jr. Jan
Producer: Konečný Jiří
Production company: Endorfilm s. r. o., Czech TV
The core of the film is a project of Kateřina Šedá, “From Morning Till Night,” which the author made for London’s
Tate Modern Gallery. Šedá invited 80 inhabitants of Bedřichovice to London. On Saturday, September 3, 2012 from
dawn to dusk, on a one-and-a-half-square-kilometre facsimile of Bedřichovice, they engaged in the same activities
they would have done at home at that time. Furthermore 80 British artists stood at the imaginary borders of the
village as part of the project, painting the South Moravian village from photos. This project did not end with the
London event, and its sequel and other current projects of Kateřiny Šedá are captured in the film, too.
Little Hanoi
Director: Sakova Martina
Producer: Kleinmichel Martin, Sakova Martina
Production company: PROJECTOR23, HBO Europe, Film Frame
An intimate story of Miluška and Lída, two Vietnamese girls struggling with their future in the “exotic” Czech
Republic. For more than six years, we follow the steps these two best friends take to building a new home and
prospects in Europe. This is a film about co-existence in the new Europe of vanishing borders, where acceptance and
support of cultural heterogeneity plays a very important role.
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Yallah! Underground
Director: Eslam Farid
Producer: Eslam Farid
Production company: Mind Riot Media s.r.o., Mortal Coil Media, FAMU - Film and TV School of Academy of
Performing Arts in Prague
2011. Unrest rocks the Arab world. Young people in every large city in the Middle East and Northern Africa call for
more rights and a change of the current system. But who are these young people? What does their life look like and
how do they imagine the future in their countries? To understand dreams, conflicts and life situations of these
people, we present current young artists from various cities in the Middle East. These artists represent a new
generation of Arabs who can move easily between cultural or political environments and influences in their life as
well as at their work. Thus they can integrate in their work the various conflicts which they deal with regularly on a
personal as well as professional level.
Fortress
Directed by: Kokeš Lukáš, Tasovská Klára
Producer: Hrubý Tomáš, Kubečková Pavla
Production company: nutprodukce, FAMU - Film and TV School of Academy of Performing Arts in Prague
Dniester Moldovan Republic. Imagine a space where history has stopped. For 20 years President Igor Smirnov has
been the official head of this non-existent state, which he created before the break-up of the Soviet Union. Set on
the border of the current European Union, Fortress follows several figures stuck in a geopolitical gap between
Europe and Russia, between the present and the past, between the mafia and decent people, between decadence
and the hope for change. In the background of the Dniester presidential elections, the film analyses the rules of the
organisation of the non-state and an ordinary life within it.
New Life
Director: Oľha Adam
Producer: Berčík Pavel
Production company: Evolution Films, s.r.o., FAMU - Film and TV School of Academy of Performing Arts in Prague,
Artileria
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This is documentary about a large Slovak family without a father. Jana, her five daughters and her son Adam found
themselves suddenly alone. Adam decided to document this change and make a film as the man of the family. The
film is a story of a man who can’t handle seven women and how the seven women manage to fight for one man.
What lesson can he learn from the divorce of his parents and how can he teach his sisters to divorce well in the
future?
Václav Havel, Prague – Castle 2
Director: Jančárek Petr
Producer: Müllerová Alena
Production company: Czech TV
Václav Havel, Prague - Castle 2 is the second part in a planned trilogy mapping the early activity of Václav Havel at
Prague Castle. Havel comes to Prague Castle at the beginning of the 1990s – a place morally and culturally destroyed
– as a creative man, sensitive artist and fundamental playwright. He opens the Castle to people as well as to art and
culture, he opens the Czech Republic to the world, notably the Rolling Stones and subsequently U.S. President
George Bush. This is one of Havel’s last appearances as himself in film.
Contact:
The Institute of Documentary Film
Phone: +420 224 214 858
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.DOKweb.net
Czech Film Center
Phone: +420 221 105 398
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.filmcenter.cz