Artemio Benki

France

Artemio Benki

producer, distributor, director

The Splendours and Miseries of Burlesque in Bohemia

Son of Czechoslovak immigrants born in Switzerland, film director & burlesque impresario Sonny Vargas (David N. Jahn) fights to build a successful burlesque show in Prague. Is he ready for the reality of the country of his ancestors? And is the post-communistic society ready for his decadent burlesque lifestyle? Our film follows a bevy of protagonists: dazzling diva Angelina Angelic, naughty sweetheart Miss Cool Cat, mysterious Lady Mousellyca and seductive crooner Sonny Vargas, Master of Ceremony himself. You will find yourself vacillating from backstage at a burlesque extravaganza, to smoke-filled nightclubs fraught with intense dynamics, to poor hotel rooms, the day life jobs and back again. What are these maverick post- Iron Curtain artists experiencing and are the Czechs ready for it? On the surface, a sparkling world of beauty, fame and perpetual orgasm. But envy, intrigue and hatred together with struggles to make a living are constantly burbling behind the curtain. The word burlesque suggests that the story will often involve exaggeration and deceit. This is why the narrative style of our documentary will be light hearted and move swiftly. Welcome to the tragicomic world of cabaret in the heart of Europe - Bohemia. Is our society mature enough for this kind of unblinking look into our collective sexual soul?

Confidential

Confidential is a story of those for who the Cold War still remains; a story about life after life of a former double spy František V. František was part of the Czechoslovak military intelligence trained in Moscow and was to become one of the most effective agents of the communist bloc. The fate of this perfect spy will however switch in August 1968, when Warsaw Pact troops invaded his country, Czechoslovakia. Already in place, under diplomatic cover of military ataché in Paris, he decided to offer his services to the French Intelligence DST and became a double agent “mole”. The collaboration will last ten years; long ten years of double life before being uncovered, after he crossed way of another “mole” in DST, SERG E F., who reported him – probably…

The Sperminators

Mr. Jiri M. has a peculiar hobby. Few years ago he put on the internet an advert ‘I make only beautiful daughters.’ Since then, beside six daughters he has with his wife, he has begotten around twenty daughters. Mr. Jiri is not the only man like this. In Holland lives the 48 years old Mitch., who does the same in grand style, as there is no wife to slow him down – with 106 children he got nicknamed ‘the most virile man in Europe’ by the media. The true insemination superpower is Denmark, where whole system stands and falls with anonymity. But even that has its pitfalls, and not only in the form of disease from an unknown donor as the infamous case of ‘Donor 7042’. What is the responsible way to create the future generations?

My Private Mongolia

Anna, a Latvian non-citizen born in Riga in 1991, the year of the collapse of the USSR and formation of independent Latvia, is going through the process of naturalization, while at the same time trying to discover her personal identity and her place in society. My Private Mongolia is an intimate story that follows its protagonist very closely, observing the transformation of a stateless person, and addresses the question of what it really means to belong.
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