Retriever

'White on White' is director Viera Cákanyová's video diary that she kept while staying at the Polish Antarctic station, where in 2017 she shot the film 'FREM' (2019), whose main character was an artificial neural network. During her stay, the author chats with various artificial intelligences, leading conversations that touch on the nature of film, art, and the meaning of life while also revealing a way of thinking that's free from humanity and from an emotionality that forces deep introspection. Footage from her routine, everyday life at the station contrasts with lyrical images of the immaculate Antarctic nature, which the author complements with her own commentary and thoughts provoked by the loneliness of the ice-covered landscape.

On New Year's Day, two boys wind up in the apartment of Katerina, a teacher from their school, along with her friends, Stepan and David. As the older trio bickers, drinks and flirts, the boys gain eye-opening insight into the adult world.

A short story film presenting four micro-stories of Prague residents and visitors: Panorama, The Lawyer, The Ordinary Timetable, The Secret of the Monument.

The film tells the life story of its director, Jan Nemec, one of the most known and important filmmakers of Czech New Wave.

Romi, a prostitute, is anything but successful at her job: she is of far too gentle a nature for her clients. The more obstinately she is pushed to the streets by her pimp Franz, the closer she is to a complete breakdown. One day Romi is addressed by a property speculator referring to himself as a "wealthy Jew". He does not demand any sexual services of her. He satisfies himself with Romi telling him stories, for which he lavishly rewards her. However, no one shares the sudden happiness with Romi. Her workmates and current clients turn their backs on her, as does Franz, with whom Romi is in love. The whole story takes place in the setting of a dilapidated city, during the clean-up of which politicians openly split their profit with speculators and lobbyists, all under protection from the police.

This darkly grotesque drama unfolds on multiple paths. The tangible one, now cruel, now crazy, along which the nomadic actor "Dad Mour", his wife "Mum" and two sons try to return home, but also the imaginary one, even more, tortuous and dusty, on which the often impressive mental youth (or immaturity, a scrooge might say) is welded with life circumstances forcing the protagonist to wise up. An anxious and exuberant cinematic faerie about love, the fear of loneliness and the gaze of sons fixed on their fathers.

Incomplete thoughts and fragments of dialogue, diverse music interrupted by rushes and glitches, and the seemingly confused, unanchored camera, create a disturbing, philosophical reflection on the limits of anthropocentric thinking.

Jan Merta (1952) is currently one of the most important Czech visual artists. In his painting work, shaped by the postmodernism of the 1980s, he leans towards abstract abbreviation and symbolic depiction of reality through everyday objects. The film is a snapshot of his life filled with painting, working in his garden and cohabitation with his partner. The civilian camera follows Merta as he prepares an exhibition for which he attempts to create new works. However, his engagement with the current geopolitical situation enters into the work, as well as the discovery of new compositional principles and creative otherworldliness that co-create his enchanted personal world.

Human kindness and purity in a corrupt world will never go out of style. This is proven by Fyodor Dostoyevsky's more than 150-year-old story "The Idiot," which continues to inspire new adaptations and resonates with contemporary audiences thanks to its timelessness.