Shameless

Colour, 35 mm
Czech Republic, 2008, 88 min
Section: Czech Films 2008-2009

Synopsis

Accomplished director Jan Hřebejk, popular actor Jiří Macháček and best-selling author Michal Viewegh teamed up to create a story about the fickle Oskar, who certainly has reason to see himself as a successful man in the prime of life. He has his roles perfectly balanced: beloved husband, attentive father and favourite television weatherman. One Saturday morning, however, Oskar wakes up to the realisation that his wife’s nose is just too big. How could he have lived with her for so long? He decides to take up with a young lover and eventually leaves his family for her. His awareness that he must find true love at all costs drives him from one extreme to the next, and also into the arms of the aging singer Nora. The clouds begin to gather above the man who was always ready with a smile for his TV audience as he forecast the worst possible weather... Shameless was inspired by the book Short Stories about Marriage and Sex by Michal Viewegh who, with a degree of hyperbole, describes the film as an "unromantic comedy”.

About the director

Jan Hřebejk (b. 1967, Prague) is commercially one of the Czech Republic’s most successful directors of the middle generation. He studied dramaturgy and screenwriting at Prague’s FAMU. He gave his debut with the 1950s retro-musical Big Beat (1993 - Czech Lion award for Best Direction and Best Czech Film). This was followed by the family tragi-comedy Cosy Dens (1999 – FIPRESCI Award and a Special Mention at the Karlovy Vary IFF), the award-winning bitter-sweet tale set during the Nazi occupation Divided We Fall (2000 – Czech Lion for direction, Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film), the "normalisation” tragi-comedy Pupendo (2003), the contemporary mournful comedy Up and Down (2004 – Czech Lion for direction and Best Film), the love story Beauty in Trouble (2006 – three Czech Lions, Special Jury Prize at the KVIFF), the tragi-comedy Teddy Bear (2007) and the comedy I’m All Good (2008).