Czech Films 2012–2013 2013 / ODPAD MĚSTO SMRT / Czech Republic 2012
Contemporary Prague – social decay is inevitable. Prostitute Romi’s failures at work and elsewhere drive her to enthusiastically pursue other options. Is she heading for salvation or damnation? This courageous film from a director most often associated with box-office hits marks another shift in his varied creative career.
Prostitute Romi is blundering through life when, one day, she meets a businessman calling himself "the rich Jew.” He takes a dislike to her pimp, a brute who vents his frustration on Romi at the drop of a hat. Given the situation, a violent and drunken finale seems inevitable – one that will reveal more than we may perhaps wish to know. Set in a stylized world of the upper echelons, the film highlights a certain jaded and aloof social set, only to systematically deny the pleasures which are promised at first glance. Instead of rose-colored hues, it posits an unflattering view of humanity in decay. Finding the causes of social failure, however, is hard – as if they have evaporated into the mists of unremitting drunkenness. The consequences, to be sure, are more than obvious, making the emotional response all the stronger. The film is based on Dušan D. Pařízek’s stage production which, in turn, drew on the screenplay by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. On another level the movie is a tribute to Comedy Theater’s Prague company, which wound down its own exceptionally successful productions in the year the film was made.
70 min / Color, DCP
Director Jan Hřebejk
/ Screenplay Dušan Pařízek, podle předlohy / based on Der Müll, die Stadt und der Tod, Rainer Werner Fassbinder
/ Dir. of Photography Martin Štrba, Lukáš Milota
/ Music Ivan Acher
/ Editor Vladimír Barák
/ Producer Čestmír Kopecký
/ Production První veřejnoprávní s.r.o.
/ Cast Gabriela Míčová, Martin Finger, Stanislav Majer, Martin Pechlát, Jiří Černý, Dana Poláková
/ Contact Aerofilms
/ Distributor Aerofilms
www: www.odpad-mesto-smrt.cz
Jan Hřebejk (b. 1967, Prague) is one of the most prolific and multi-talented Czech directors. His debut Big Beat (Šakalí léta, 1993) won the very first Czech Lions (Czech national Film Academy awards) for Best Picture and Best Direction. Other films, Cozy Dens (Pelíšky), which competed at KVIFF 1999, and Pupendo (2003), are among the biggest hits of Czech post-revolution cinema. He was nominated for an Academy Award for the bittersweet war drama Divided We Fall (2000), receiving another Czech Lion for Best Director. Since filming Kawasaki’s Rose in 2009, he has openly opted for more weighty moral and social themes: Innocence (2011), for example, treats an accusation of sexual abuse. In 2006 he took the Special Jury Prize at Karlovy Vary for Beauty in Trouble; he returns to the competition this year with Honeymoon.
Aerofilms
Milady Horákové 383/79, 170 00, Praha 7
Czech Republic
Phone: +420 224 947 566
E-mail: [email protected]
Ivo Andrle
Distributor
Jan Hřebejk
Film Director
Gabriela Míčová
Actress
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