Powers

Colour, 35mm
Czech republic, Germany, 2001, 28 min
Section: Czech Films

Synopsis

Petr Válek refuses to have anything to do with real magic. Perhaps that’s why he chose to be a magician – a profession based exclusively on professionally executed deception. So the life of this successful cabaret magician becomes quite complicated when everything around him is suggests that he has “supernatural abilities at an advanced stage.” During a performance Petr unintentionally levitates his assistant, he is able to play a CD with his finger and he begins to have prophetic visions of what will happen to his neighbours. No one can advise him, neither doctor, psychiatrist nor priest. He loses his job due to the strange effects he produces, and has no success dealing with the problem on his own. But his greatest difficulty of all involves his sister Svatava, a woman who can find men easily enough but is still waiting for her one true love. In the end, Petr discovers that his supernatural powers were perhaps only granted to him so that his sister might succeed in marrying a neurosurgeon.

About the director

Petr Zelenka (b. 1967, Prague) became a known quantity at Prague’s Film Academy (FAMU) after writing the screenplay for Jan Hřebejk’s short film Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex but Were Afraid to Experience (1988). He later wrote a screenplay for the BBC documentary Czech-Mate (1990, dir. by Marsh Marshall) about the Czech’s Velvet Revolution. He has made strides in the film world shooting music videos and writing screenplays for Czech Television, and his interest in rock music was evidenced in his directing debut, the pseudo-documentary Padlock (1993), and in the feature-length hoax Mňága – Happy End (1996). His talents were confirmed after he directed the tragicomedy The Buttoners and wrote the script for David Ondříček’s Loners (2000). The short Powers came about as part of a series in which Ken Russell, Hal Hartley and Mika Kaurismäki also participated.