Institute of Documentary Film opens the new documentary season with an event for documentary fans in Světozor cinema in Prague. On Monday, January 16, 08:45 p.m., there will be a combined screening of two documentaries, fresh winners of the Silver Eye Awards in short and mid-length categories, both also very successful at many prestigious film festivals abroad: A brief reflection on people handling animals at a deer farm called Pulse and an extraordinarily powerful film by Martin Kollar - 5 October.
The co-production documentary by a Danish director Robin Petré, Pulse, takes place at one of Europe’s largest deer farms, located in Hungary. It houses around 1,500 strong red deer, who are essentially still wild. The first of them was caught only 25 years ago. This creatively combined documentary plays on the line between reality and dreamy, sensorial experience while interweaving present day footage with archive photographs from the beginning of deer Hungarian farming in the 1980s, presenting a rich microcosm containing multifaceted contradictions, referring to the archetypal struggle between man and beast and to the selfish attitude of people towards nature in general.
The film was already sceened at several prestigious festivals abroad, winning awards for example in Lisboa, Minsk, Bucharest, Paris or Leipzig, where it won the Silver Dove. The Jury of Silver Eyes Award which announced it as the best short documentary within the East Siver Market in Jihlava 2016, commented on their decission: "The film impressed the jury by its original approach and artistic craftsmanship, using specific and unusual point of view in combination with high filmmaking language. By using various materials, including photographs, mostly made by farmers, who have no problem to kill the animals, juxtaposes the topics and makes the viewer uncomfortable."
The Film 5 October is a directorial debut by a renowned Slovak photographer and cinematographer Martin Kollár. It was premiered on one of the most acclaimed European Film Festivals in Rotterdam and also screened at international film festivals in Warsaw, Karlovy Vary and Mexico City. The protagonist is the director’s own brother, who one day, after he learns he's facing the possibility of only having a few months to live, hoppes on his bicycle and rides away from everyone and everything in the “normal” life, observing the places and situations surrounding him reflect his feelings, trying to cope with an illness spreading in his body. His vagrant journey has a specific “deadline”, the day of the risky surgery, October 5.
“As filmmakers, we keep looking for good stories constantly. The best ones often take place in our immediate vicinity. Yet we do not like to capture such stories, as we fear the lack of perspective. I have convinced myself to shoot this film no sooner than when my fear of losing my brother was greater than my fear of losing the perspective,” the director confided to the Slovak magazine Literárny týždenník. An unobtrusive, yet extremely powerful story about a man who has to catch what might be the last deadline in his life, was appreciated by several international juries and is also currently being screened within the international project KineDok.