Katka

Colour, 35 mm
Czech Republic, 2010, 90 min
IP – International premiere
Section: Documentary Films in Competition

Synopsis

Following the movies Marcela and René, Helena Třeštíková has come out with another observational documentary whose central character is a junkie named Katka. The powerful story of her 14-year struggle with drug addiction began in 1996 in the Sananim therapy community where she dreams that one day she will find a boyfriend, live like her peers, and maybe even start a family. But in the coming years her life becomes an inescapable merry-go-round of constant drug use, theft, prostitution, and ever stronger physical, psychological, and moral devastation. In spring 2007, after a hiatus, Helena Třeštíková returns to her "heroine” and discovers that 30-year-old Katka is still on drugs. She’s gotten herself a dog and found a new boyfriend, but above all she is pregnant. Thus the focal point of the movie becomes the unexpected pregnancy and the desperate struggle for the child’s future. But Katka can only win the battle by first vanquishing her drug demons.

About the director

Helena Třeštíková (b. 1949, Prague) graduated in direction from Prague’s Film Academy (FAMU) in 1974. She founded the Film and Sociology Foundation in 1990 and the Man and Time Foundation in 1994. She has been developing her "time-gathered” method since her 1972 student film Viva Acqua. She has made over 40 documentaries, mostly treating human relationships, social problems, and women’s issues. Selected filmography: Sweet Century (1998 – Best Documentary at KVIFF) and the similarly conceived Women at the Turn of the Millennium (Trapped), (2001 – Special Jury Mention at KVIFF). Time-gathered series: Tell Me Something about Yourself (beginning 1989) and Marriage Stories (1987–2006). In KVIFF 2007 screened her long-term observational Marcela (2006) and presented another time-gathered documentary in 2008 entitled René (2008), which took the European Film Academy’s prestigious Prix Arte for Best European Documentary.