It has been a few years since journalist Saša Uhlová explored the phenomenon of low-paying work in her native Czech Republic. In a personal prologue, she confesses to feeling burned out: it has taken her several years to find the strength to take leave from her family once again to experience the reality of people whose lives generally attract little interest.
After spending some time to prepare, Saša leaves Prague and heads west, with Apolena’s film crew in close observation. During her journey she reflects on the state of Europe 30 years after the collapse of the bi-polar world: why are we still witnessing such glaring economic inequality between the ‘West’ and the ‘East’, and why are so many people forced to leave their families to look for work far from their homes? Saša sets out on her mission equipped with a variety of cameras, to allow for different types of shots: not just in her glasses, but also in a thermos flask, and other things she will be using.
The film is produced by Tereza Horska and Filip Remunda through Czech Hypermarket Film and coproduced by Olga Prud’homme Farges and Joël Farges through French Kolam Productions, as well as Peter Kerekes through Slovak Kerekes Film. The Czech TV (Alena Müllerova) and ARTE G.E.I.E (Barbara Bouillon, Claudia Bucher) are among the partners.
The project received support of 136,000 EUR / 3.4 m CZK from the Czech Film Fund in 2021, as well as 37,000 EUR from the Slovak Audiovisual Fund, 50,000 EUR from the CNC France and 12,540 EUR from the PROCIREP ANGOA France. The total budget is 376,372 EUR.
“We are very happy that we were able to get funding for producing such an interesting project. We consider its topic to be very special and a perfect fit for both authors of the project. We already collaborated with Apolena and Saša on their previous film The Limits of Work / Hranice prace, which was successfully presented at several festivals, giving rise to a follow-up on an international scale”, Tereza Horská told FNE.
The shooting started in the summer of 2021 and wrapped by the summer of 2022. The film was shot in Germany, UK, Ireland, France and the Czech Republic.
Apolena Rychlíková is a Czech documentary filmmaker, writer and journalist. She studied documentary at FAMU and she is engaged in socially critical documentaries. Her film The Limits of Work, produced by Hypermarket Film for the Czech TV, won Best Czech Documentary at the 2017 Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival, where it also got the Audience Award. Rychlíková was awarded the Open Society Fund Prize for Best Journalistic Commentary in 2017. Together with Saša Uhlová she received a nomination for the Journalism Award 2018 for their reporting series Property Seizures, the Guilty Conscience of the Czech Republic / Exekuce, černé svědomí Česka. She also received a nomination for the European Press Prize 2021.
Production Information:
Producer:
Hypermarket Film (Czech Republic)
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Coproducers:
Kolam Productions (France)
Kerekes Film (Slovak Republic)
Credits:
Director: Apolena Rychlíková
Screenplay: Apolena Rychlíková, Saša Uhlová
DoP: Jan Šípek
Editing: Kateřina Krutská Vrbová
Cast: Saša Uhlová
