Writing
People who knew R. perceived her as a happy woman. A woman from Brno in her thirties who moved to Sweden together with her Slovak husband, psychiatrist Ivan. In their new home country, the young couple bought a house and had two children. It seemed that R.’s life would continue in a predictable way. As a distraction from the routine, she chose an unusual hobby. She created a male alter-ego and started writing novels for LGBTQ+ audiences. R. was happy but felt empty on the inside. She could only fill it by living out her true self. Things started speeding up and R. began changing. R. is now Marvin. And Marvin is a man.
Beata Parkanová, the filmmaker behind Moments, returns to Karlovy Vary with an exceptionally vivid portrait of the family of notary Václav Vojíř, a small-town moral authority, and his selfless wife Věra. This masterfully told and highly original intimate drama, whose protagonists undergo a difficult ordeal in the summer of 1968, is reinforced by finely wrought, exquisite performances from Martin Finger and Gabriela Mikulková.
What was supposed to be a joyful celebration over the dissolution of Czechoslovakia turns chaotic when the Varchal family discovers that their father betrayed both country and family by working for the secret police. The family members turn against each other.
Inspired by true events of the 1989 Czech and Slovak Velvet Revolution and Václav Havel's controversial release of 23000 prisoners. In addition to the story of three families affected by communist persecution, the film Amnesty also deals with the uprising of prisoners in Leopoldov, which required military intervention. The uprising was preceded by a broad amnesty granted by Václav Havel in January 1990, just a few days after his election as Czechoslovak president.
The story of the film The Candidate takes place during two months of campaigning before a non-specific presidential election in one specific country. The author of the diary entries has no idea for whom he is recording the eavesdropping and enthusiasm for an interesting job in which he follows a bishop, a crazy owner of an advertising agency and a bland presidential candidate with the eloquent name Peter Potôň and an even sweeter-sounding family history, soon give way to disgust and confusion. His diary becomes a file with transcripts of conversations, information about characters and characters, emails, scraps from psychiatric medical records and pictures, which he scribbles at first out of boredom, later because words and rational explanations are no longer enough. The candidate is a political farce, a sad-funny depiction of what happened, is happening, and could very easily happen in this small country.
Grumpy handyman Laco loses everything to a group of mobsters. Now wheelchair-bound and with his life spiraling, it's his new friend Gabo, a local Roma who helps Laco see things with a new perspective. Revenge is sweet.
The film DOGG presents four radical author short stories that will get under your skin. Four directors, four screenwriters and four cameramen created a bizarre illusion of tension and diverse anxiety in separate stories. The short story DUET confronts you with the current threat of growing terrorism and our fear of the unknown. In the second short OPUS DEI, we find ourselves in a horror story, in an old abandoned house that hides a dark secret from the 2nd World War. The third and most controversial short story GRASSVATER forces you to look away from the screen – you are looking at scenes from eastern Slovakia, which are presented very expressively, without embellishments in all their ugliness. There are drugs, mafia, intrigue and a panopticon of characters. The last, visually refined, short story GAME raises the question of where the boundaries of television entertainment end and how far we are willing to go.
Documentary about the making of Invalid.
A crazy comedy about three bohemian friends whose fascination with adventures verging on breaking the law, sexual freedom, loose entertainment and no fears of the consequences bring them even to partaking in the theft of an Andy Warhol painting.
Vladimir 518, uncompromising rapper, artist, stage designer and activist, is a rare phenomenon, who not only writes books, but publishes them as well. Today also a respected authority primarily on pre-1989 architecture, he has written not only a major publication on the subject, but also the story for two audiovisual works treating the same theme, which were shot by Jan Zajíček, renowned director of music videos. In addition to the recent TV series we have the eagerly anticipated feature-length film which, through its fascinating and impressive exploration of Czech and Slovak architecture of the latter half of the 20th century, offers exclusive insight into extraordinary buildings and unique individuals living below the Tatra Mountains. Karel Och (kviff.com)
