Jarmila Poláková

Dajori

The protagonist of Dajori (mother in Romani) is forty-five-year-old Marie Hučková, who lives with her husband in Varnsdorf. After her younger sister Iveta ends up on the streets with her nine children, she decides to take her own fate and theirs firmly into her own hands and attempts to break out of the vicious circle of poverty that characterises their hometown. This sensitive film, which captures three years of a newly formed family's life together, follows the small joys and daily challenges of caring for others and asks whether a mother's love can overcome the dysfunctional system in which socially excluded localities find themselves.

Birdhill

Eva’s home is a small hill called Birdhill on the outskirts of Bratislava. During her childhood, it was still covered with historic vineyards of Maria Theresa and forest; today’s reality is cranes and excavators. In her film, she gets to know its current inhabitants and discovers that each of them lives and dreams a slightly different version of this charismatic place. Even though they live on the same hill, they cannot come together to set limits on the construction that is transforming their home unrecognizably, ruthlessly and at a breathtaking pace.

How I Became a Partisan

This documentary film reveals how the lives of the descendants of a partisan fighter in the Second World War are still impacted by the events of that period, 75 years after the end of hostilities. In making her case, Lacková provides glimpses into her private surroundings. Over the course of her film, she also points out frightening parallels between the reign of the Nazi terror regime and the resurgence of racist currents throughout today's Europe.

Love Your Enemies

The story of a Swiss woman and a Czech man, who changed hundreds of lives.