Michael Jiřinec

Searching For Jan Skácel

A collage of influences, spoken sentences, deeds, traces, and appearances of the Brno poet and prose writer Jan Skácel. Contemporary cultural figures regard the author as a social and cultural phenomenon. The directors of this documentary, on the other hand, decided to treat Jan Skácel as a subject of literary and social history, whose role in the cluster of regime and cultural events is unwavering and often – nowadays – glorified or otherwise embellished. In the film, they attempt to distance themselves from the established ideas about Jan Skácel and, at the same time, from past interpretations of Jan Skácel’s work. Instead, they interpret him through their own series of images.

Searching For Jan Skácel

A collage of influences, spoken sentences, deeds, traces, and appearances of the Brno poet and prose writer Jan Skácel. Contemporary cultural figures regard the author as a social and cultural phenomenon. The directors of this documentary, on the other hand, decided to treat Jan Skácel as a subject of literary and social history, whose role in the cluster of regime and cultural events is unwavering and often – nowadays – glorified or otherwise embellished. In the film, they attempt to distance themselves from the established ideas about Jan Skácel and, at the same time, from past interpretations of Jan Skácel’s work. Instead, they interpret him through their own series of images.

SHITFACE

The film portrait of a face made of shit thematizes the individual's ideas about his own freedom. Antonín dolák, philosopher and YouTuber, feels free when he gets rid of all social conventions. He loses his face, takes off his mask and talks openly about the socially taboo topics that line his life. However, a conflict arises between him and the staff, when Dolak loses control over the depiction of himself.