Published: January 31, 2023| 11:43 AM

Although art is not a competition, the Academy of Fine Arts entrance exams must decide the winners and losers. How to select from the crowd of applicants the chosen ones who will get the opportunity to shape the nature of art in the years to come? And how will the teachers themselves stand up to this test? The directors Adéla Komrzý and Tomáš Bojar decided to film talent tests for three studios of the Academy of Fine Arts. The result is a layered documentary that is both a portrait of the institution and a light-hearted generational testimony in one.

The film's strength is that it appeals not only to insiders, but also to the general public, among other things by the exclusivity of the environment, which the filmmakers are able to present to outsiders with humour and insight. The film scored at last year's Karlovy Vary Film Festival, where it won two awards in the new Proxima competition section. It was also nominated for the Czech Lion and the Czech Film Critics' Awards.

"People are guaranteed to be entertained by the film, and at the same time they will remember various funny situations from the times when they themselves applied to university, and any university, because almost all of us went through interviews in some form. And I'd also like to entice high school students who want to apply to an art school to see roughly how it might go. Maybe the unknown territory will give them courage and insight," said director Adéla Komrzý at the presentation in Karlovy Vary.

A year before, her previous film - Intensive Life Unit - had also competed at the KV FF and won a special award in the East of the West competition. The director followed the palliative care team from the General University Hospital in Prague for three years and together with the pioneers of Czech hospital palliative care, Kateřina Rusinová and Ondřej Kopecký, she opened up topics in the documentary that have virtually disappeared from our lives. Death and dying with dignity. 

Although doctors Ondřej and Kateřina take care of their patients with all their strength, they cannot prevent their death. As the head of the palliative care department at the hospital, they face the inevitability of the end, but their difficulties are caused more by the time of the abundant possibilities of prolonging human life, when death has become a social taboo. Adéla Komrzý shows with her own empathy that while dying cannot be good or bad, the quality of life of the sick can always be improved. In addition to winning awards at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, the film won the Czech Lion and the Czech Film Critics' Prize.