Audiovisual Production

Documentary Films and Audio Documents

Documentary Films

The Mass (cze Masa)

The mass is a distillation of human evolution, a parable about the treatment of substance, an image of the control over bodies that are hanged on the world’s tissue, or else disgorged from the ocean mass onto dry land, which is interwoven with bodies and the movement of hunters, gatherers, and vagabonds. Our observation of the various forms of abstracted masses, which we become part of at the same time, creates a platform of eternal presence – an active void if you will, which revolves in a closed circle, as though it had neither beginning nor end. What is left is just the stark presence of the traces of bared lives.

Dialog language: Greek, English, Arabic
Titels: cs, en
Running time: 31 min
Concept: Michal Pavlásek, Ivo Bystřičan
Scriptwriters: Ivo Bystřičan, Michal Pavlásek
Camera: Ivo Bystřičan
Sound: Václav Flégl – Sounderground
Director: Ivo Bystřičan, Michal Pavlásek
Producer: Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, v. v. i., Prague – Department Brno
© Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, v. v. i. 2013

The Film was produced with the Institutional Support for Long-term Conceptual Development of Research Organizations RVO: 68378076.

The Mass - online

Searching for the Exit (cze Hledání východu)

Searching for the exit is a personal documentary insight into one of the most debated topics of today – the forced migration of refugees coming to Europe. The Balkan route is the main migratory gateway into Europe. Having spent several summer weeks among the refugees, the filmmaker had the possibility to build close personal relationships with people coming mostly from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. This recurring pattern of friendship is constantly present in the film thanks to Hussein, a young man from Basra in Iraq who is forced to forget a terrible life tragedy. Hussein’s journey represents a transition between the past and the future, while the filmmaker experiences it as a constant materialization of the uncertainty and dilemmas resulting from his EU citizenship. The passport in his pocket makes him confront his privileged position with the situation of the people he meets during the journey despite the fact that the distance between him and the refugees is often totally erased. The film depicts various encounters and situations from the Balkan route and brings a personal testimony about the border area and state controls, media coverage, volunteer aid, widely spread stereotypes and grey economy. These images and refugee testimonies allow the viewer to experience their journey, get a close up on migration, become a refugee.

Dialog language: English, Czech, Serb, Arabic
Titels: cs, en
Running time: 26 min
Concept, Scriptwriter, Camera: Michal Pavlásek
Script Editor: Ivo Bystřičan
Editing: Šárka Sklenářová
Director: Michal Pavlásek
Producer: Vyrobila TPS Petra Kubici, Česká Televize 2016
Co-producer: Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, v. v. i., Prague – Department Brno

The Film was produced with the Institutional Support for Long-term Conceptual Development of Research Organizations RVO: 68378076.

Searching for the Exite - online

Another Vojvodovo: thinking in pictures (cze Druhé Vojvodovo: myslet obrazem)

Vojvodovo is a village in Bulgaria, inhabited in 1900 – 1950 by several hundred Czech Protestants. During their post-war re-emigration to the border areas of the South Moravia region of Czechoslovakia, they brought along with them the “spirit” of their world. The film tries to bring this world back through video-elicitation. Visual pictures of the Vojvodovo scene fade to the people who gradually fill the recording with the meaning of their experiences, just as a figurine symbolizing the community is being dressed in the film. Among the guardians of the legacy today, besides Vojvodovo and their offspring and descendants, are the professional ethnographers who have succumbed to the magic of Vojvodovo and who have taken part in the reconstruction of its picture with their texts. A similar role is played by the film itself, a multivocal visual narrative constructed both “here” and “there” (in South Moravia and in Bulgaria) another Vojvodovo. The aspect of geographic distance is suppressed, and in the foreground stands a mutuality distributed by professional ethnographers, the Internet, and meetings with (ex)Vojvodovians. All of which poses the question – where is Vojvodovo today?

Dialog language: Czech
Titels: cs, en
Running time: 34:07 min
Concept, Scriptwriter, Camera, Editor: Michal Pavlásek
Sound: Václav Mach
Director: Michal Pavlásek
Producer: Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, v. v. i., Prague – Department Brno
© Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, v. v. i. 2013

The Film was produced with the Institutional Support for Long-term Conceptual Development of Research Organizations RVO: 68378076.

Hundred Years of Memories. Anežka Zatloukalová (*1908) (cze Stoleté vzpomínky. Anežka Zatloukalová (*1908))

Anežka Zatloukalová was born in Tršice near Přerov, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, into the large family of a musician. In her interviews she returns to the scenes of her childhood and youth, an era influenced by music, theater, and the Sokol physical fitness movement, but marred by two world wars. Her recollections are interspersed with musings about life, the historical events of the 20^th century, and the fate of human civilization.

The interview with Anežka Zatloukalová was recorded on 26. 7. 2011 and 8. 11. 2011.

Language: Czech
Titels: en
Running time: 20:51 min
Concept, Cooperation: Alena Cedidlová
Camera, Editor: Petr Baran
Scriptwriter, Director: Jiřina Kosíková
Producer: Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, v. v. i., Prague – Department Brno
© Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, v. v. i. 2013

The Film was produced as part of the research project of the Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, v. v. i., Prague Cultural Identity and Cultural Regionalism in the Process of Shaping European Ethnic Patterns (reg. number AVOZ90580513) and with the Institutional Support for Long-term Conceptual Development of Research Organizations RVO: 68378076.

A Hundred Years of Memories. Jan Nitka (*1906) (cze Stoleté vzpomínky. Jan Nitka (*1906))

Jan Nitka was born within the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Tršice near Přerov, where almost all of his long life story played itself out. He died in 2013 just short of his 107^th birthday. He was a professional gardener and pomologist, and was active in the Sokol physical fitness movement. He took part in every Sokol rally in Prague from 1920 onward. His recollections, captured in an interview on 16.8.2011, are part of the small history of the 20^th century.

Language: Czech
Titels: en
Running time: 22:04 min
Concept, Cooperation: Alena Cedidlová
Camera, Editor: Petr Baran
Scriptwriter, Director: Jiřina Kosíková
Producer: Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, v. v. i., Prague – Department Brno
© Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, v. v. i. 2013

Time Bows Beneath the Burden of the Grapes. The Past, Czechs and Germans in the Serbian Banat
(cze Pod tíhou hroznů čas se sklání. Z minulosti Čechů a Němců v srbském Banátě)

In the 18th century the Serbian Banat gained its multicultural face, lined with vineyards on the countryside’s fertile slopes. Cultivating the grape vine became the common ground of the everyday joys and sorrows of ethnic Germans and Czechs, joint witnesses to historic events. Their stories form a colorful mosaic of personal testimony about forgotten human stories that describe the Banat’s conflicts, tolerance, and deep religiosity.

Dialog language: Serbian, Czech, Hungarian
Titels: cs, en
Running time: 22:00 min
Concept, Scriptwriter: Michal Pavlásek, Jiřina Kosíková
Camera: Jiřina Kosíková, Petr Baran
Editor: Petr Baran
Director: Michal Pavlásek
Producer: Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, v. v. i., Prague – Department Brno
© Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, v. v. i. 2012

My Wars. Věra Fialová (*1918) (cze Moje války. Věra Fialová (*1918))

Věra Fialová was born at the end of the First World War as the out-of-wedlock child of a Czech woman and a Polish man, a Russian prisoner of war. In an old suitcase she keeps her old letters and pictures from the First and Second World Wars. Her memoirs, accompanied by songs from her family repertoire, capture the “small history” – the life story of an “ordinary woman” against the background of the great historical events of the 20^th century.

An edited document taken as part of ethnological field research in 2007 and 2009 using the methods of first-hand engaged observation, biography, oral history, and audio-visual recording.

Language: Czech
Titels: en
Running time: 25:49 min
Scriptwriter, Editor: Petr Baran
Concept, Camera, Director: Jiřina Kosíková
Producer: Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, v. v. i., Prague – Department Brno
© Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, v. v. i. 2010

God give us what is good/ Gib, oh Gott, nur das Gute (cze Daj bože što je dobro/Dej, Bože, jen to dobré)

Impressions from an expedition by Czech ethnologists in Eastern and Western Serbia in May 2007. “Sacrum et profanum” in symbiosis between Christianity and everyday life. Way of life of older people in the disappearing world of traditional culture, for example herding, crafts, and homemade products. Conversations reflecting the method of communication and interpersonal relations in rural society. Recollections capturing “small history”, historical events seen through the eyes of ordinary people.

Dialog language: Serbian, Czech
Titels: cs, en, de
Running time: 26:29 min
Scriptwriter, Camera: Jiřina Kosíková, Petr Baran
Editor: Petr Baran
Music: Serbian folk music and albums „Homoljski motivi“ and „Zemlja svetog Simeona“
Director: Jiřina Kosíková
Producer: The Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, v. v. i., Prague – Department Brno
© The Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, v. v. i. 2007

Interviews with Czech Ethnologists

Audiovisual recordings of interviews were made between the years 2012 and 2013 within an internal project called Interviews with personalities of ethnology (with Institutional support for a long-term conceptial development of the research organisation RVO: 68378076), or during field research within other projects in previous years.

We contacted personalities active in Moravia and Silesia. Our choice was determined by leaving of the first academically educated experts in the second half of the 20th century, their position in various professional institutions and their personal contribution to the development of their scientific field. Last but not least, it was determined by the consent to audiovisual documentation of the interview given by the concerned personalities.

In semi-structured interviews the questions were focused on motivation for studying ethnology, role of the interviewee in the institutions, on his/her field research, projects and publications. Informal atmosphere during the interviews allowed interviewees to reveal what they consider to be important in their field or personal life. The interviews were lead by Jana Pospíšilová and Marta Toncrová; the only other people present were the interviewees and Jiřina Kosíková and/or Michal Pavlásek, who recorded the meeting.

Excerpts intended for presentation are an authorized edited version of the interviews and take mostly approximately one hour, two hours maximum. Complete interviews are archived in the documentary collection of the Ethnological Institute in Brno and are used as internal study material.