This full-length documentary entitled 5 Rules is Vavřinec Menšl’s directing debut. As cinematographer and screenwriter, he has collaborated in a number of other projects that are now in the making (Divadlo Sklep 1971–2012, Tři dědečci, etc.) He has worked on the publishing show Pološero for Czech Television. Menšl’s main profession, however, is photography, and he began at the age of 13 to capture each and everything he could with a camera. Later, he began to take shots of protests and created arranged photographs. Today, he mainly focuses on architecture and design for Czech and foreign magazines while creating reports for Czech newspapers MF Dnes and Instinkt. He likes to take portraits of people, whose hardships in life have been imprinted on their faces. He has presented his works in the Post Bellum project entitled We Haven’t Given Up, and in the One World Film Festival. His works have also been on display in many galleries – most recently the Fragner Gallery in Prague and the Architecture Center in Vienna’s Museum Quarter.
Czech Republic