At Full Throttle by Miro Remo
Five Czech majority documentaries and one Serbian doc selected across Crystal Globe and East of West competitions, as well as Special Screenings. The 55th edition of the leading Czech festival to run August 20-28.
Crystal Globe Competition
At Full Throttle/Láska pod kapotou
Directed by: Miro Remo, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, 2021, 85 min
Fifty-something former miner Jaroslav has always dreamt of a career as a race car driver. In a congenial and jovial manner, he represents not only the charms and struggles (especially economic) of southeastern Moravia, but also the ever more visible chasm between city and countryside. An uncommonly charismatic portrait of a man struggling with the traumas of the past who, with disarming directness, clings to the promise of good luck and a dignified life alongside a new partner.
Every Single Minute/Každá minuta života
Directed by: Erika Hníková, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, 2021, 80 min
The Hanuliaks, a couple from Slovakia, have decided to bring up their son according to Kamevéda, a complex approach to developing the child’s motor abilities and intellect. Unique in its depth of focus, this reflection on child-rearing documents a year in the life of four-year-old Miško, where not a minute is wasted since there is no room for boredom and moments of rest are merely preparation for the next achievement.
East of the West Competition
Intensive Life Unit/Jednotka intenzivního života
Directed by: Adéla Komrzý, Czech Republic, 2021, 73 min
Even though doctors Ondřej and Kateřina look after their patients to the best of their ability, they can’t prevent their death. As heads of palliative care at Prague’s General University Hospital they face the inevitability of the end on a daily basis. Yet what perhaps makes their job harder is the myriad options now open to them to prolong human life – and this at a time when death has become a social taboo. Betraying her special brand of empathy, documentarist Adéla Komrzý demonstrates that, while there’s no good or bad way to die, there’s always a means to improve patients’ quality of life.
Directed by: Tea Lukač, Serbia, 2021, 80 min
A silent landscape flashes past the windows of a moving car conveying different sets of passengers. The conversations veer towards such diverse themes as carol-singing, nuclear waste, and the dangers of hornets’ nests. Tea Lukač’s anthropological probe gets by with a minimum of cinematic devices in order to deliver a focused study of the phenomena of memory, history and tradition.
Special Screenings
Dreams About Stray/Cats Sny o toulavých kočkách
Directed by: David Sís, Czech Republic, USA, France, 2020, 96 min
“Do you know what I’ve always wanted to find out, brother? Where do you get your ideas for your drawings?” director David Sís asks his older brother Petr at the beginning of the film. He doesn’t get an answer right away, but perhaps it can be found in this documentary that, with great care, traces the highly successful career of a talented and multifaceted artist whose work crosses generational and geographic boundaries.
Reconstruction of Occupation/Rekonstrukce okupace
Directed by: Jan Šikl, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, 2021, 95 min
Documentary filmmaker Jan Šikl has spent many years seeking out and collecting private film archives. In this way, he came across several hours of footage showing the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. Exactly fifty-three years later, on August 21, 2021, historical memory awakens from a long slumber with this reconstruction of the occupation, a cinematic adventure of a truly archeological nature.
