Ivo Bystřičan

No description available.

Experts guide us through the world of drugs and show their impact not only on the individual's body, but also on society as a whole.

This documentary takes us to Zambia, a country with significant copper reserves. The state used to mine and sell copper itself. Then its price fell and the mines were forced to privatize in favor of Western multinational companies. While the proceeds used to finance schools, healthcare, and infrastructure, today all the money leaves the country, including generous subsidies from the European Investment Bank. Czech documentary filmmaker Ivo Bystřičan and cameraman Jiří Málek come to see what the situation, which seems to be taken straight out of the daily news in the Western world, really looks like. We are used to looking at the so-called Third World through the eyes of passionate activists fighting poverty and all kinds of humanitarian organizations. The Copper Age, on the other hand, soberly shows that we should be more interested in what this "selfless" aid looks like in practice.

No description available.

Activism, direct observation, and situational documentary inconspicuously linger about the constantly delayed construction of the D8 motorway. Local residents, a Brno-based activist and the construction chief shatter the clichés of contemporary documentary film - among other things in who we should root for. The local mixes with the global just like economics and the environment.

No description available.

The documentary provides an insight into the life and work of one of the Czech Republic's most experienced war reporters, Martin Dorazín.

No description available.

No description available.

Various legally available substances are creating bad habits in children and young people, causing disastrous physical condition and significant health complications. A key part of the documentary are the authentic stories of young people who were willing to share their personal experiences and problems associated with the use of these substances. While filming, documentary filmmaker Ivo Bystřičan worked closely with experts from leading organizations that specialize in working with young people at risk of addiction. The documentary seeks to offer an authentic and ethically sensitive view of the problem of substance use among young people and draws attention to its health and psychological consequences. It also shows ways to address these problems with the help of experts, therapists, and families who provide young people with support on their path to recovery.

Sometimes, citizens of Czechoslovakia would have to spend several years waiting for their own car. Even so, the communist party hoped to use the newest model of the Škoda automobile to demonstrate the country’s affluence and state of technological advancement. The story of the Škoda Favorit shows how the company from Mladá Boleslav built not only reliable machines but also constructed the illusion that life in Czechoslovakia was good.

November 1989 brought democracy and faith in economic prosperity. Like other state-run enterprises, Tatra Kopřivnice was to be transferred into private hands. However, the company’s privatization has become one example of the naive reliance on market forces and on the honesty of the "heroes" of early capitalism. The initial euphoria was soon replaced by disillusionment.

Set history free. A modern history, enclosed for more than a quarter of a century in an abandoned prison in Uherské Hradiště with unique rooms preserved from the 1950s. The authors fill the emptiness of the premises with situational encounters with the building, nature and people who are united by their experience of the place and who are often divided by their life experience. A shared past as a starting point to a shared future.

This documentary film, which is based on the field-recording research method, gives space to the physical places where important energy, natural, and political processes take place. The director, musicians Václav Havelka and Pan Throrarensen, philosopher Lukáš Likavčan, and field-recordists Sara Pinheiro and Magnús Bergson all ask the question: “What are sounds that we don’t attach any importance to in our everyday lives trying to tell us and how can they predict the sequence of events that affects our lives?” Here, sound becomes a tool that can oftentimes capture geological time better than an image.

A substance that saves lives and destroys them at the same time. How does fentanyl work in medicine and who does it help with pain? And what are the fates of those who have fallen victim to this powerful and addictive drug?