Member of the program team Tomáš Hudák presents his five festival tips

Tomáš Hudák and his festival selection:

Landscapes of Resistance / r. Marta Popivoda

Marta Popivoda’s film materializes the memory traces of an elderly woman, Sonja, who remembers how she became a partisan and joined the anti-Nazi resistance. However, we rarely see her directly in the film. Instead, we travel through the land where she herself walked 80 years ago, as if her story had been written into these lands. The mundaneness and humility of her heroism contrasts with the war monuments that we sometimes see on the road. Sonja is an engaging storyteller and becomes a source of inspiration for the main creative duo in a world where the extreme right is on the rise again.

Retour à Reims (Fragments) / r. Jean-Gabriel Périot

Through Didier Eribon’s text, performed by Adèle Haenel, the film tells the intimate and political story of the French working class from the early 1950s to the present day.

Eami / r. Paz Encina

In the language of the indigenous people of today’s Paraguay and Bolivia, the word Eami means both forest and world. However, it is also the name of a girl protagonist who is expelled from her native land due to land trading and deforestation. Her community is falling apart and she wanders the forest. In a minimalist story, Paraguayan director Paz Encina introduces us to local cosmology, philosophy and myths, which she interweaves with the native population’s narrative of forced eviction. The result is a powerful sensory experience based on beautiful images as well as sophisticated film music.

Bergman Island / r. Mia Hansen-Løve

A filmmaking couple living in America, Chris and Tony, take refuge on the mythical island of Fårö for the summer. They hope to find inspiration for their upcoming films in this wild, breathtaking landscape where Bergman lived and where he shot his most famous works. As the days spent apart pass, Chris, increasingly fascinated by the island, resurfaces memories of her first love. The boundaries between reality and fiction gradually blur and divide the couple even more. The cast of Vicky Krieps and Tim Roth, together with the well-thought-out character direction, also attracted attention in the competition for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes festival.

Il buco / r. Michelangelo Frammartino

The winner of the Special Jury Prize comes to Cinematik from the Venice Festival. Captivating, at times even meditative, the film captures the beauty of the southern Italian countryside, where a group of adventurers from the north come to explore one of the deepest caves in Europe.