Film Archive

Amerika

Documentary Films - Competition 2015 / Amerika / Czech Republic 2015

The story of an unusual journey or a staged piece of contemplation? However we perceive this tale of a couple wandering through the Czech countryside, we can best experience it by yielding to the calm tempo of their journey through the shady woods. Amerika isn’t a portrait of specific individuals but rather a probe into the Czech phenomenon of “tramping.”

Synopsis

Czech-Canadian Bára and musician Honza set out together to wander the Czech countryside. On their journey, which leads them through shady woods, across sunny meadows, and under clear night skies, they gradually join up with a local “tramping” community. But in this picture names are inconsequential. Amerika isn’t a portrait of specific people but rather a probing look at the phenomenon of Czech tramping. The film gradually circles in on the central issue; instead of an explicit description of the external signs of the topic in focus, it attempts to elicit the emotions a person can draw on to experience the landscape they find themselves in. At the same time, it speaks of hard-to-fathom terms such as freedom and romanticism. The film, relating a tale of people who reject the rush of modern life to seek out liberty, whatever it might mean to them, can be seen as a staged piece of contemplation and as a story of an unusual journey.

Martin Horyna

About the film

70 min / Color, DCP
World premiere
Director Jan Foukal / Screenplay Jan Foukal / Dir. of Photography Jan Baset Střítežský / Music Johannes Benz, Ten Thousand Wolves / Editor Josef Krajbich / Producer Tereza Polachová, Hanka Kastelicová / Production HBO Europe / Coproduction Evolution Films s.r.o. / Contact Czechfilms.cz / Distributor Aerofilms

About the director

Jan Foukal (b. 1979, Prague) graduated in documentary filmmaking from Prague’s Film Academy (FAMU). He is an external member of the Vosto5 theater troupe. In 2013 he took the pseudonym Johannes Benz to present the audiovisual road movie Song of the Open Road, inspired by Walt Whitman. In 2014 he released his debut album One Way Road in collaboration with Supraphon records. He is cofounder of the Tranzistor label and the initiator of the “Cinema Open” movement, which has been engaged in reclaiming closed movie theaters in the Czech Republic since 2009. He shot the short documentaries Hello Babu (2006), Egon Bondy’s Last Lecture (2009) and The Making Of (2011), and filled supporting roles in Jitka Rudolfová’s films Dreamers (2009) and Delight (2013). The documentary Amerika is his feature-length directorial debut.