Auto*Mate

"A playful film essay about our automobile-automatic society. A film crossing the border of its media, turning into a social act.Martin Mareček: “I lived in downtown Prague, in the ""heart of Europe"". In Prague, ""the mother of cities"", as well as ""the city of cars""... According to statistics, it is one of the most car-crippled cities in Europe. Six years ago, I met my neighbour in the hallway. He was moving: ""Well, we're off, we can't take this anymore."" I replied: ""Yeah, I understand, it's the cars, isn't it? The noise, the smell…"" The neighbour smiled, puzzled: ""Not really, it's cause we have nowhere to park."" Is the story absurd? Is my neighbour autistic? Not quite. I believe that most of us city folks are this automatic… We all suffer from it… Automatically we swear, automatically we drive. Slowly but surely, our game ends with our own auto-mate. Isn't there anything we can do about it? I realized that it is no longer sufficient to make a film. It would only turn into another short essay filled with automated clichés, targetting the usual audience. Another submission into the intellectual fish tank. Therefore, I have gradually turned from a film director into an activist, an artistic radical and a political lobbyist. The multilayered organism AUTO*MATE was conceived.”