Acting
The film explores the theme of a free human life, independent both internally and externally, presenting – in this documentary ode – a series of scenes linked by personal passion and emotional experience, centred on the director’s children as well as her friends and loved ones, including Karel Schwarzenberg, Dáša Vokatá, Jim Čert, Stanislav Penc and John Bok, whom the film binds together with an invisible bond, reminding us that one cannot escape one’s own era, but that one can live within it on one’s own terms.
Musicians Jim Cert and Jaroslav Erno Sedivy between San Francisco and Prague.
Olga Havlová was the closest and most trustworthy companion of Václav Havel. A friend who was always generous with her time. She was an entertaining host, passionate games-player, mushroom-gatherer, nature-lover, sharp commentator, and courageous and diligent dissident. In 1990 she founded Výbor dobré vûle (Committee of Good Will), which is still doing vital work today.
A labyrinthine portrait of Czech culture on the brink of a new millennium. Egon Bondy prophesies a capitalist inferno, Jim Čert admits to collaborating with the secret police, Jaroslav Foglar can’t find a bottle-opener, and Ivan Diviš makes observations about his own funeral. This is the Czech Republic in the late 90s, as detailed in Karel Vachek’s documentary.
This controversial feature blends documentary, archival footage and fiction into an elliptical narrative in which two young people in Prague, an ancient seat for the practice of alchemy, follow the trail for the mystical philosopher's stone. History and future blend as brilliant montage sequences and fanciful leaps of the imagination work to posit questions about the legacy of the past and how it influences the individual's personal freedom and responsibility.
