Leave No Traces
(Venezia 78)
ABOUT THE FILM
Poland, 1983. The country is shaken by the case of Grzegorz Przemyk – a high school student beaten to death by militia. Based on true events, the film follows the story of Jurek – the only witness of the beating, who overnight became the number one enemy of the state. The oppressive regime used its whole apparatus – the secret service, militia, the media and the courts – to squeeze Jurek and other people close to the case, including his parents and Przemyk’s mother, Barbara
PRODUCTION INFO
Leave No Traces is Polish-French-Czech co-operation, produced by Leszek Bodzak & Aneta Hickinbotham of Aurum Film (PL) in co-production with Les Contes Modernes (FR) and Mikuláš Novotný of Background films on the Czech side, Arte France Cinéma, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes-Cinéma and Canal+ from France, Magiclab and Czech Television from the Czech Republic, and Mazovia Warsaw Film Fund from Poland.
Director Jan P. Matuszynski introduced his fiction feature debut The Last Family at the Locarno IFF in 2016, where it won the best actor award. Matuszynski's documentary Deep Love (2013) was honored with the best documentary award at the Moscow IFF.
The film was supported by Polish Film Institute, Région Provence-Alpes-Côte D’azur, Région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée. The Czech Film Fund granted support in the minority co-production scheme in 2018 amounting EUR 127 000. The international sales are handled by New Europe Film Sales.
107 Mothers
(Orizzonti)
ABOUT THE FILM
Lesya has committed a crime of passion which brings her a seven-year sentence in one of Odessa’s women’s correctional facilities. She has just given birth to her first child, and now she is entering a world populated only by women: inmates, nurses and wardens, women of all ages, wives and widows, daughters, sisters, pregnant women, and women with children. If not for the color of the uniform, it would sometimes be hard to tell who is who.
PRODUCTION IFNO
The producer of this compelling drama is Slovak auteur Ivan Ostrochovský of Punkchart films who also wrote the screenplay. The Co-production partners include established Czech production companies endorfilm (producer Jiří Konečný) and Hypermarket Film, Radio and Television of Slovakia (SK), Arthouse Traffic (UA) and Peter Kerekes Film (SK).
Director Peter Kerekes received nomination for the European Film Award for his documentary Cooking History (made in co-production with Czech company Negativ) in 2009. Another his doc, Velvet Terrorists (co-produced by Hypermerket Film and Czech Television), won the FEDEORA Award at the Karlovy Vary IFF and celebrated its international premiere at the Berlinale Forum, winning the Tagesspiegel Readers’ Award. 107 Mothers is Peter Kerekes' fiction feature debut.
As a project in the making, it received the Works in Progress Award at Karlovy Vary IFF 2017 (still under the title Censor). The film was also awarded the Sub-ti Award in the First Cut+ programme within Trieste’s When East Meets West co-production market 2021, and it was supported by the Czech Film Fund, altogether with EUR 131 000.
Miracle
(Orizzonti)
ABOUT THE FILM
Divided into two chapters, Miracle follows young nun Cristina (19) as she sneaks out of her isolated monastery to attend to an urgent matter. Her enigmatic journey takes her all around town, but she is seemingly unable to solve her problem and find the man she is looking for. Out of options, she returns in the evening only to meet an unexpected fate on her way back to the convent. The second part of the film deals with Marius Preda (44), a determined police detective trying to understand what happened to her. Marius retraces Cristina's journey, step by step, through all the places she visited. In a perfectly mirrored structure, his investigation uncov-ers clues and revelations leading not only to the unfathomable truth behind Cristina’s mys-terious actions, but possibly, to an actual miracle as well.
PRODUCTION INFO
Miracle is Romanian-Czech-Latvian co-production with Oana Iancu and Bogdan George Apetri of The East Company Productions acting as main producers. Co-producers include Czech producer Viktor Schwarcz of Cineart TV Prague and Latvian producer Aija Berzina (Tasse Film).
Director Bogdan George Apetri co-operated with Viktor Schwarcz and Aija Berzina also on his previous film Unidentified, which premiered at the Warsaw IFF 2020. In Warsaw, Apetri also introduced his feature debut Periferic in 2010, for which he received 3 awards, including Special Jury Prize.
Miracle was also supported by the Czech Film Fund, with EUR 77 000 in 2020.
Czech Film Center operates as a division of the Czech Film Fund
