Fighter

Colour, 35 mm
Czech Republic, Italy, USA, 1998, 91 min
Section: Documentary Films - Out of Competition

Synopsis

During the Second World War, Jan Wiener (1920-2010) fled from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia through Yugoslavia and Italy to Great Britain, where he fought as an RAF pilot. Because of this he was sent to a Communist camp in his own country. Later he emigrated once again and lived in Lenox, Massachusetts. Arnošt Lustig (1926-2011), a journalist, author and screenwriter who spent part of his childhood in a concentration camp, became a close friend of Wiener. Both men are the protagonists of a new journey along Wiener’s one-time "route.” The elderly emigrant revisits places where he went through various dramatic and even tragic events, and meets people who helped him through that difficult time. In addition to Wiener himself, writer Lustig also narrates his friend’s tale and perceives the past in his own way – as a series of Odyssean stories. The protagonists do not always agree about what happened, nor about what the events signified. Alongside Wiener stands a person with a controversial nature, a zealous narrator who is so strongly convinced he is right that it sometimes even threatens their friendship.

About the director

Amir Bar-Lev, American producer and documentary film director. He studied briefly at FAMU in 1997. His film Fighter won the Special Jury Prize in Karlovy Vary’s documentary film section. My Kid Could Paint That (2007) was premiered at Sundance and subsequently competed at Karlovy Vary. He produced the documentary Trouble the Water (2008), which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance  and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary. His latest film is the biographical documentary The Tillman Story (2010). Amir Bar-Lev is chairman of the documentary jury at this year’s festival.