Mister Hrstka

2012: Time for Change(en)

2012: Time For Change is a documentary feature that presents ways to transform our unsustainable society into a regenerative planetary culture. This can be achieved through a personal and global change of consciousness and the systemic implementation of ecological design.

Prefabricated Houses(cs)

A student work by Jiří Menzel, filmed during his second year at the FAMU film school. Views of old Prague and its tenement buildings, symbolizing the obsolete past, alternate with shots of construction sites for new prefabricated apartment buildings. In spite of certain unavoidable propagandistic overtones added by the director, it is notable as the beginning of his search for a “dramaturgy of colors.”

Politická karikatura(cs)

Nebe patří nám(cs)

A documentary film about parachute training in the Voluntary Union of People's Aviation.

Připraveni(cs)

Stráž míru(cs)

I See in the Dark(sl)

Confessions of people who have lost their sight during their lives. What are their feelings and how do they view their apparent handicap?

Ultraviolet(en)

In Vancouver, British Columbia, two teenagers attempt to create a feature length documentary about their lives. The main character James (played by himself) becomes obsessed with the project and is pushed into a more introverted, lonely existence. His best friend Quinn (played by himself) sets out to help him, but is met with the real answer as to why James is keeping himself inside: the rejection of what he thinks is the love of his life. The two of them go their separate ways, with James going deeper into a depression he’s not sure he can escape from.

Dárci života(cs)

Didactica Magna: Against the Grain(cs)

The film is an insight into a teacher's soul and a contemplation upon his teaching fate. This portrait of a unique, experimental filmmaker and teacher Martin Čihák takes a look at his teaching methods, his meetings with his students at FAMU and at a park where they work with film, or in his studio.

Present Moment(cs)

A film poem. A minimalist reflection on whether inner states are transferable by the film medium. The aim of a Buddhist mindfulness meditation is to clear away thoughts wandering from the past to the present, to be mindfully aware of each present moment. Each unique NOW NOW NOW passing away just like single frames while the camera grab snatches off meters of expensive 35mm material.

The Hall of Lost Steps(cs)

In a series of juxtaposed images and sounds, Jaromil Jireš comments on the tragic premature death of thousands as well as their posterity due to the atomic bomb.

Manifest(da)

An intimate statement about the filmmaker’s need for self-expression through her own nudity and simultaneously an effort to reject the taboo of patriarchal society. Using diary entries, anger-filled personal reflections, and discussions with a mother painting her nude daughter, the film opens the topic of overcoming shame for one’s own physicality and female sexuality.

Common Language(ru)

The director, who has always been viewed as the black sheep in her family, sets out to the Belarusian town of Vitebsk to talk with her parents about previous grievances and topics that were considered taboo. The effort to find a common language, which runs into stormy emotions and the inability to voice honest opinions, is captured through both personal moments and detailed shots of the protagonists’ faces.

Our Daily Work(ro)

A group of men share a small space in a prison metal workshop in Botosani, Romania. When they’re not working, they animatedly discuss religion and hypocrisy, lament during tea that they don’t have onions for sausage, or joke and sing.

Worlds Apart(my)

In 2012, violent conflicts broke out between the Muslim Rohingya and the Buddhist majority in Rakhine State on the west coast of Myanmar. The government subsequently deported Muslims and imprisoned them in a camp on the outskirts of the city. The documentary looks at the lives of neighbours on both sides.

Varga(sk)

Sonia Maletzová's documentary film portrait follows the legend of the Czechoslovak music scene, rock keyboardist Marian Varga (1947-2017), at the end of his life, when he was diagnosed with a terminal illness. It captures the great introvert and avid smoker during his last performances, when he slowly began to lose his breath.

heroes(en)

Displaying the faces and voices of transgender youth, the documentary short shows the authenticity of queer and trans people living in Toronto, while simultaneously discussing the struggles for self-acceptance that people who do not conform to cisgender and heteronormative ideals of gender face. Andy Nguyen, trans director and film student, captures his trans friends in their natural state on 16mm film shot on a Bolex h16 camera. Accompanied by narration written and recited by Salem Rao, this film represents that trans people exist and this is what we look like. Regardless of the obvious everyday transphobia, trans people find community and uniqueness within each other and themselves.

Cars Without a Home(cs)

Jan Schmidt and Pavel Juráček turn their attention to the problem of Czechoslovakia's unloved cars in this whimsical documentary short.

Aeon(en)

Dealing heavily with perceptions of time, Aeon documents the urban cityscape as Wellington transforms through a zen-influenced eternal cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth within a 24-hour period.