Kha-chee-pe/Chačipe

Thursday | April 12 | 8 pm

Czech Republic | 2005 | 57 minutes | screenwriter, director of photography, director: Miroslav Janek | editing: Tonička Janková | music: Jaroslav Kořán

This strangely called film, Kha-chee-pae is not a traditional documentary from the point of view of the method used to gather material. For several years, director Janek had been going with children from a children´s home on a vacation to France. He would bring a trick camera and teach children to use it. When later he had decided to make a documentary about the children, he had realized that, in fact, he already had plenty of material. He himself just gave the film its structure and shape. Janek does not take the children as objects but as partners, co-authors. By giving the camera to the children and also to their nurses we are offered authentic footage of the environment in which they live. But the film is not restricted to simple recording of reality. The children shoot animated sequences together, act and shoot small scenes, or experiment with film material. Beside trick and standard camera with which they created animated sequences, they had a chance to shoot on 16mm black and white film. Thanks to this spontaneous way of working and mainly to mutual trust the children give a testimony about their world and their tough life. The film is very well rhytmically crafted. The dynamic, chaotic shots or crazy scenes made by children during their free time are alternated by pieceful details of faces, mature or naïve, playful and poetic animations. But despite various style, used throughout the film, the result is a whole. All sequences are connected either by music or by voice of one of the protagonists. Janek usually focuses on one child whose story, animation, or scene is being shown. Fictitious funny scenes full of violence, alcoholics and madmen speak very well about what the children went through during their life and what they are missing. On the other hand the animated sequences are full of joy, sensibility and playfulness. Music helps to describe and highlight the atmosphere. Besides pieceful tracks of Jaroslav Kořán, Janek also works with rhytmical and sometimes mystical ethno style. Camera in the hands of the children breaks a wall between two worlds. It is a toy as well as an instrument which enables to confess secrets, to cope with desperation and to overcome sudden sadness.

Adéla Doudová