Martin Mareček

A film of many styles, combining a documentary with animation, jazzing up the time principle by provoking situations, tells a personal story of the director-biker as well as the journey of Auto*Mat initiative from poetic demonstrations against cars to constructive component of a living civic society.

A carefully composed observation of two newsrooms which, in March 2017, were avidly chasing after information about the Czech president’s decision whether or not to run for re-election. Two teams of reporters, one extraordinary event, and two takes on one "objective" piece of news.

Film in hand. Carnival in the global village.

Film in hand. Carnival in the global village.

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.

The desire to achieve the greatest physical strength and moments of complete lack of mental strength define the life of film critic Kamil Fila during the filming of this atypical time-lapse documentary. The necessary moment of observation is broken in a longer period of time by the protagonist’s attempts to bring his life into harmony with the people closest to him, which, nevertheless, regularly lead to failure. The result is a portrait of an intellectual at his wits’ end, a man who struggles with the limits of rationalisation. It is precisely the openness with which Fila lets us peer into the depths of his private life that has a therapeutic effect not only for him but also for the viewer.

In 2006, Milan and Tomas electrified a school campus and a hospital in a detached Zambian village. After four years, they return for the last time to find out about their system's failures, repair it and hand it over at last. The film follows them through chaotic days as well as pitch black nights and provides a fresh insight into the pitfalls of humanitarian development projects. Short circuits of all sorts, blending and dissolving of different worlds, rituals of gratitude and concepts of solutions. With no attempts to declare or evaluate anything, Solar Eclipse becomes a situation probe examining various forms of light and darkness. Will the two Czech linkboys succeed in lighting up the Zambian bushland?

Father and son Vít and Grisha travel to Russia to visit the boy’s mother and sister. Why did their previously harmonious family split in two? A documentary road movie about the distance between two Slavic countries, the difficulties of fatherhood and puberty, and the alienation between people who should, in theory, be the closest of all.

Father and son Vít and Grisha travel to Russia to visit the boy’s mother and sister. Why did their previously harmonious family split in two? A documentary road movie about the distance between two Slavic countries, the difficulties of fatherhood and puberty, and the alienation between people who should, in theory, be the closest of all.

A film of many styles, combining a documentary with animation, jazzing up the time principle by provoking situations, tells a personal story of the director-biker as well as the journey of Auto*Mat initiative from poetic demonstrations against cars to constructive component of a living civic society.

A film of many styles, combining a documentary with animation, jazzing up the time principle by provoking situations, tells a personal story of the director-biker as well as the journey of Auto*Mat initiative from poetic demonstrations against cars to constructive component of a living civic society.

Baku in Azerbaijan, the site of the world's first oil well, is once again becoming a focus for foreign investors eager to exploit the country's vast oil riches. "Source*" traces the pipeline from our commuter highways back to this surreal and sinister landscape on which our way of life depends, where cows graze on polluted land and children play in toxic gunge. With three quarters of the population living under the poverty line, the country's post-Soviet government is promising oil will return Azerbaijan into a real country, a prosperous and flourishing "New Kuwait". But between big oil companies like British Petroleum and the corrupt government lining their pockets, what does this mean for ordinary people of Azerbaijan? Is this "liquid gold" more of a curse than a blessing for this troubled country?

Baku in Azerbaijan, the site of the world's first oil well, is once again becoming a focus for foreign investors eager to exploit the country's vast oil riches. "Source*" traces the pipeline from our commuter highways back to this surreal and sinister landscape on which our way of life depends, where cows graze on polluted land and children play in toxic gunge. With three quarters of the population living under the poverty line, the country's post-Soviet government is promising oil will return Azerbaijan into a real country, a prosperous and flourishing "New Kuwait". But between big oil companies like British Petroleum and the corrupt government lining their pockets, what does this mean for ordinary people of Azerbaijan? Is this "liquid gold" more of a curse than a blessing for this troubled country?