Viera Čákanyová

Slovakia

Viera Čákanyová

director, sound editor, producer

World of Walls

To evoke and imagine the near future, we decided to set our documentary feature project World of Walls in the environment of extreme social divisions and escalating climate crisis. The story takes place in an unspecified country that is being destroyed by continuous environmental disasters, located in today’s South Africa, close to Pretoria - Johannesburg. The rich are living inside strictly protected luxury estates with secure infrastructure, while the rest of the world survives on scarce resources on the other side of the wall. People knew these catastrophes were coming years in advance but ignored the fact. The dystopian reality is revealed through the curious eyes of the two child protagonists. At the beginning, the climate catastrophe affects Lorraine’s and Elizabeth’s worlds only subliminally, but as the film moves forward, the severity of incidents begins to escalate and thus increases the tension and the collective concern about the safety of the children. We put these disturbing scenes in contrast with children’s games and intimate interactions with their friends and parents. The threat of “force majeure” is always present, limiting their usual daily activities and infusing the overall mood of the community with fear and anxiety. Confronted with everyday disasters, the girls are trying to learn about the causes that brought the world to the threshold of climate catastrophe. At some point, they come to understand that it is also their parents who allow the ongoing destruction of the planet, making their children’s lives unbearable.

If Pigeons Turned to Gold

Pepa, the film’s author and narrator, meets their cousin David after many years lying in hospital where his legs were amputated. Pepa’s older Brother has lived on the street for over a decade. He sleeps in a concrete shed in the middle of a housing development where Brother and Pepa grew up. Their cousin Marco, David’s brother, houses in a garage and makes do collecting electronic waste. Pepa was unable to save their father but is resolved to save their Brother and cousins.

If Pigeons Turned to Gold follows three years in the lives of four relatives, contrasting a common childhood with a present fundamentally at odds. A mosaic-structured documentary, it charts the story of a quest for balance between love and hate, care and self-destruction, exploring the roots of addiction and the possibility of breaking with generational trauma. How does one let those whom one loves most live (and perhaps die)? How do we stop tolerating and begin to respect?
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