Tomáš Svoboda

Ema & Death’s-Head deals with the precarious border between humanism and the protection of one’s own life in situations when one excludes the other. Marika Sándorfi is hiding a Jewish boy during the dramatic era of the First Slovak State on the Slovak-Hungarian border. Šimon Holan, the boy in hiding, has a special ability to survive thanks to dreaming and a child’s fantasy.

Three years after the fall of the Berlin Wall; six months before the split of Czechoslovakia. Despite all warnings, a young homicide detective sets on investigating a convoluted case that involves Catholic clerical elite and high-ranked agents of the former secret service.

Kinetopsia, a disorder in which one believes that static objects are in motion, serves as a metaphor for the social situation we find ourselves in: the Velvet Revolution took place thirty-five years ago, and while the opaque present continues to bring new problems, public discussion often still revolves around the hunt for the "spectre of communism". From the perspective of a young couple, we discover the fascinating project of Sylvia's abandoned Discoland and become aware of the critical moments of the political transformation that has determined the economic and cultural conditions in which we live today.

After the premiere, the theatre group gathers in a bar to celebrate. However, the cheerful gathering is interrupted by a drunken Soviet officer. He insists on selling a can of petrol. However, when he senses the awkwardness, the hidden hatred, the cowardice, the timidity of the people there, he begins to enjoy the situation with his intrusiveness. When he takes his pistol out of its holster, things start to get crazy. The people in the bar suddenly become “freedom fighters” against the Russian occupation.

This fascinating historical drama looks at the life of "the Czech Schindler," Zdenek Toman, a controversial figure who was an unsavory politician and dubious entrepreneur, but also the savior of hundreds of Eastern European Jews.

The fictional town of Šlukdorf. Here lives a car mechanic who calls himself Bourák. He loves rock and roll, dance, his own gelled hair and, despite being in his fifties, simply “refuses to grow up”. He forgets he has a wife. The only things he loves are Elvis, Cadillacs and anything connected with 1950s America. His daughter Kamila is fed up with life in the squalid town and with her irresponsible father. She is fed up with working in a casino with no windows, open round the clock; that her mother has caught the eye of the local gangster, who is clearly a dimwit; with her father behaving as if he has gone completely barmy. Kamila realizes she has to do something about it. She has to confront her parents with reality, as cruel as that may seem. A black comedy about everything that can happen because of a summer storm, a set of golf clubs, rock and roll, and one incredibly angry daughter.

The feature film by visual artist Tomáš Svoboda is not about film. It is not an essayistic reflection on the moving image. It is not a comical story from a summer afternoon. It cannot be perceived as a record of a work process. It is not even a retold film. And it is certainly not about the technology of filmmaking. It is about life.