Marie-Magdalena Kochová has her short 3MWh included in this year’s KVIFF Future Frames section, intended for students and graduates of film schools. However, she also presented her feature-length debut, a documentary The Other One, where she concentrates on “glass children”, or siblings of special-needs children. She is one of them, as she told the audience during the discussion at the Small Hall. The film follows 18-year-old Johanna and her family. “I deeply appreciate their trust and the way they took me in,” the filmmaker thanked them.
While the film is shot from Johanna’s perspective, the director emphasizes that the viewers should also try to understand her parents. “The members of the family truly love each other, but they are exhausted and then prone to remorse. If I made the film from the parents’ view, we’d see how much they’re dealing with. The logistics of caring for a special-needs child is enormously challenging and the social support is insufficient,” the director explained. She said that her film has opened up topics for discussion in the protagonist’s family. “First I showed the film to Johanna. Her first words were that it was worth all the time she spent with me,” Koch revealed at the debate, where some in the audience shared their own family stories.
