Puppet Masters

“The fact that I’m playing myself doesn’t mean that it’s me.” Four old schoolmates, today well-known Czech actors (Pavel Liška, Tomáš Matonoha, Josef Polášek and Marek Daniel), decide to make a movie together. Their ambitious colleague Jan Budař takes up directing duties and financing has arrived from Poland. What started out pleasantly enough, however, soon goes awry. Liška’s pronunciation difficulties, Daniel’s alter ego Havlát, and Matonoha’s financial machinations turn the shoot into a fight for survival. More than just a film about friendship and the absurdity of actors’ lives, director Marek Najbrt gives us a witty meditation on reality and illusion, and a unique take on the reality film genre. One of Pavel Liška’s on-set comments (“I didn’t know if I should act as if I were acting, or act as if I weren’t acting, or just not act at all”) illustrates the provocative nature of Najbrt’s subversive, quasi-documentary game.

Maciek, Beata, Jacek and Heniek have been working together as car dealers for years. One day a policeman arrives at their workplace and inquires about Heniek, suggesting that the man leads a double life. As Heniek has just taken a few days off, his three colleagues undertake individual investigations into his real identity. Outwardly not believing in his guilt, in secret, they look for proof that Heniek is a gangster and for the loot he presumably stole. But is Heniek really a crook?