What is Czech about Czech film? At last year’s Karlovy Vary festival, two producers posed this question to thirty Czech filmmakers. Letting the answers unfold freely, they took inspiration from Room 666, Wim Wenders’ documentary in which he interviewed his colleagues at Cannes in 1982.
This year, The Czech Film Project by Marek Novák and Mikuláš Novotný had its world premiere at KVIFF. “We have to thank the Karlovy Vary festival for existing and making this celebration of cinema possible. And for the support that made our project reality,” said Marek Novák, producer of Ordinary Failures and After Party.
His co-creator Mikuláš Novotný reassured the audience that if they felt confused at the end of the film, that was okay: “Finding an answer to our question isn’t easy, so we chose a format that doesn’t offer one. We want to spark your imagination.” Novotný, who previously worked on The Journey to Rome and Karel Vachek’s final film Communism and the Net or the End of Representative Democracy, also gave the audience permission to relax: “Our film doesn’t have a classic beginning, middle and end, so if you doze off a bit, you can still piece together your own picture of Czech cinema.”
