Peli-Cannes — Becoming a Hero

opening comments to a pair of documentary films from the series Tales of the 20th Century: The Holocaust (Post Bellum and Czech Television)

/ Adam Drda (Memory of Nations / Paměť národa)

— Czech

​The Beginning of Extinction
/ screenplay by Adam Drda (26 min)

— Czech

​​The Family Camp and Big Murders
/ screenplay by Adam Drda (27 min)​

— Czech

The Holocaust, Kindertransports and "Winton's Children"

/ Adam Drda (approx. 60 min)

A lecture with film clips and photographs from interviews with witnesses from the Czech Republic and Israel on the topic of child rescue transports, the role of Nicholas Winton and other events in Sweden and Denmark.

— Czech

One Life
/ directed by James Hawes, Great Britain, 2023 (108 min)

One Life is a British biographical film about British aid worker Nicholas Winton. The film follows Winton as he looks back on his past helping groups of Jewish children in German-occupied Czechoslovakia to hide and escape in 1938–39, just before the start of the Second World War.

Barbie

/ directed by Greta Gerwig, USA, 2023 (114 min)

To live in the Land of Barbie is to be a perfect being in a perfect place. Unless you‘re having a complete existential crisis. Or you‘re Ken.

Oppenheimer
/ directed by Christopher Nolan, USA / Great Britain, 2023 (180 min)

At a time when the Second World War still looked indecisive, a dramatic battle was being fought at a distance between the United States and Germany to see who could first construct the atomic bomb and gain a decisive advantage over the enemy. In America, the secret research was known as the Manhattan Project and one of its key players was the astrophysicist Robert Oppenheimer. Under immense time pressure, he and a team of other scientists were trying to build an invention that had the potential to destroy the world, but without its timely completion, the same world could not be saved...

Credentialing

/ directed by Jan Hecht, 2023 (20 min)

A day before Christmas Eve, a young, inexperienced doctor starts his first night shift on his own. All of his more skilled colleagues have left to spend some time with their families. There are no signs which would indicate that this calm night will change into a struggle for not only a child's life, but also a professional and personal credentialing. The psychological drama of a young doctor, who has just started his career, refers to a real case from 2017 and draws attention to the alarming situation in the Czech healthcare system.

Shift

/ directed by Jakub Ondráček, 2023 (15 min)

Firefighter and pitcher Martin Schneider has his biggest tournament yet. The amateur baseball player is about to touch what he has dreamed of his whole life. A hard head against a hard wall. For once, throw it hard.

After the Silence Was Broken

/ directed by Mikuláš Arsenjev, 2023 (51 min)

The life of Marie-Luisa Purkrábková, studying to be an actor at DAMU in Prague, turned upside down after she made public anonymized testimonies of sexual harassment and abuse of power at the school. Her performance and subsequently founded initiative YOU DON’T! HAVE TO ENDURE IT. The documentary follows Luisa one year after the performance as she struggles to leave this role and find herself again. Thanks to the close relationship between the protagonist and the director, the film delivers an unusually visceral account of the consequences a victim of sexual harassment must face if they decide to speak up.

Creature of the Sun

/ directed by Šimona Müllerová, 2023 (30 min)

Childlike imagination, naive playfulness and an enchanted view of the world are at the centre of this poetic film. The child protagonists talk about their dreams, fantasies and experiences while touching on metaphysical questions of body and soul, life and death. Magic permeates every frame of this colourful collage.

Behind the Horizon
/ directed by Ema Hůlková, 2022 (10 min)

How aware are we that despite the constant flow of information, we only perceive our own clutter of information through which we form our worldview? And why are we so sure of it? … A report about a shepherd, sheep, and a radio in the high mountains.

A Blessing

/ directed by Barbora Venclová, 2021 (9 min)

Veronika and Jonáš are looking forward to living together for the first time in a surprisingly good rent. However, a collision with the landlords reveals that the living arrangements will be far from free. Who does the housing crisis play into the hands of and who can afford to choose their housing today?

My Paradise Is Darker Than Your Hell

/ directed by Kateřina Dudová, 2023 (76 min)

Theatre director Jan Kačena poisoned himself in 2019 by inhaling fumes and suffered irreversible brain damage. While his partner makes a film as a declaration of love, he lies unconscious. In the film, the director follows moments in the everyday lives of three people close to him: Czech rapper Tyler Durden, painter Tadeáš Pochman and film director Helena Papírníková. In a naturalistic way, it captures drug addiction, self-destructive tendencies and family problems, which are the subject of intimate, often uncomfortable conversations. The result is a diary-style probe into the fate of the artistic bohemia of late capitalism.

• discussion
• Audience Award announcement