Czech Dream/Český sen

Thursday | May 31 | 8 pm

Czech Republic | 2004 | 87 minutes | directors: Vít Klusák, Filip Remunda | director of photography: Vít Klusák | editor: Zdeněk Marek |

An unconventional project of two FAMU students Vít Klusák and Filip Remunda employed the curiosity of Czech society with its theme as well as demand for its creation. The directors managed to create a mass advertisement campaign for a product which actually did not exist, however it appeared to be real thanks to the agency responsible for the precise propagation of unbelievably convenient goods. All customers were lured by them into a mall, wittingly called “Czech Dream”, supported by slogans of figurative meaning: “Don’t spend”, ”Don’t hustle”, or “Surprise for everyone” . Even though many people had found the attractiveness of the Czech Dream mall offers rather suspicious, only a few of them would have missed the opportunity to be amongst the first ones to see their consumer dream themselves, personally, at the climax of the campaign – the opening day of the new mall. Only the directors, and later also the movie spectators, knew that the tension and expectation was supposed to be interrupted and interchanged by disillusion, disappointment, and also anger.

The campaign led by two new-born fake managers – the directors themselves, provided material for the movie Czech Dream released exactly one year after the unique opening day. Although the point was already exposed, the final point of view was to be completed, and yet expressed. The movie, which tracks the whole process of the creation of the fake promotion, as well as the reflection in the media and opinions of the public, combines features of a documentary with reality show. Spectators are shown how the PR agencies work, the different specialists employed for an advertisement to work effectively, or how an image of a product influences our reception thereof. We can see the directors/actors discovering this machinery with us, for us, and by using us. People took part in the movie from the moment they saw the promotion on billboards or flyers, while as viewers of the movie, take part in the example conspiracy against themselves. This distorted reality was created to manipulate, to elect discussion, and to shoot the documentary as the final product of filmmakers who managed to express themselves in a style that might not be moral, appropriate, or even acceptable. However, the newly coined term “Czech dream” tells us to be cautious of any naïve expectations.

Ondřej Kuhn

Daddy and Lili Marlene, A Low-Level Flight/Tatíček a Lili Marlén, Nízký let

Thursday | May 17 | 8 pm

Czech Republic | 2005, 2006 | 2x 52 minutes | screenwriter and director: Jan Šikl | editor: Jan Daňhel, Šimon Špidla | sound editor: Daniel Němec |

“Our lives are unique and unrepeatable. The Private Century series shows the history as a set of intimate human stories. Their intensity can adress also the others because the fundamental events happen in the lives of each of us.”

The Private Century, a unique project done by Jan Šikl, makes use of extensive though little known amateur footage from individuals, thus creating a different image of the troubled twentieth century. The project, not yet finished, comprises so far of six one-hour long documentaries, each focusing on one member of a family and telling of their decline and fall – King of Velichovky focuses on the head of a German farmer family living in Sudetenland before WWII; Daddy and Lili Marlene, a sequel to the King of Velichovky, is narrated from the point of view of his granddaughter and tells of the disintegration of the family in the dramatic 1950s. Statuary of Granddad Vinda is a story of a non-conformist Moravian sculptor, the author of a Klement Gottwald sculpture, which, together with The Stoke of Butterfly Wings reveals the hidden, personal face of communist ideology from the perspective of its followers.

Small Russian Clouds of Smoke and A Low-Level Flight return to the family concept – they tell a story of Russian families that emigrated to democratic Czechoslovakia and settled here despite the unfavorable political situation after 1948. Low-Level Flight is a recollection of a daughter of a Russian who married a Czech Army pilot, accompanied him on his ambitious career to the Soviet Union, and whose marriage collapsed, as well as the Czechoslovak democratizing process, after the invasion in 1968.

The stories of The Private Century contrast the official history of “big” events and personalities with personal histories of their victims. The heroes of the Private Century films are mostly anonymous “crowd people” facing personal twists and catastrophes on the background of political turmoils. The form of family movies that Jan Šikl uses in this cycle is an unprecedented homage to hundreds of amateur filmmakers who never had a chance to hit the screen but who give voice to and rehabilitate the memory of the silent majority of the nation.

Veronika Klusáková