Helena Všetečková

Aren't the deformed images of Marx which we often come across in the Czech Republic, a manifestation of the fact that we have not yet come to terms with the communist regime, asks Michael Hauser, philosophy lecturer from the Charles University in Prague. Filmmakers took his question and transformed it into a film. They followed a protest with their camera, they caught Slovenian philosophy bear Slavoj Zizek in a Prague archway. For those, who might get bored, they used colorful filters. Besides that, they invited a rat to participate, an animal that knows how to listen.

In his provocative mosaic of opinions from different sides of the political spectrum, Martin Kohout reflects on where the ideals of November 1989 and the former sense of community have disappeared to. He tries to understand the progressive fragmentation of Czech society through two recent events. Both the parliamentary elections in 2017 and the subsequent direct election of the president made it clear that there is no consensus in the country today on even the most basic concepts such as "freedom" or "democracy". Sources of concern, ideas about the country's future direction, and the national myths on which cultural and political figures and disaffected voters rely all vary.

A multi-portrait of the history of post-1989 Czech ideas and sensibilities, centered around left-wing Christian philosopher Karel Floss. Circling his ideas on God, truth, and politics like satellites are statements by strongly antithetical individuals including Milan Knížák, Ondřej Slačálek, Noam Chomsky, and Czech nationalist thinkers. Working with a subtle sense of irony, the film is openly inspired by the style of Karel Vachek as it makes use of semantic counterpoints, situational humor and aloof formal elements. The result is a kind of audiovisual riverbed for channeling the fury of a nation that recalls a child that is just learning to think and does not know what to relate to first, because in a certain sense, basically “everyone is right”.