Feral

Jiří Holba / Czech Republic / 2018 / World Premiere / 72 min.

synopsis

Charlie Soukup is a Czech underground songwriter and Charter 77 signatory. He emigrated in the early 1980s, and has spent the last several decades living on his own in the Australian outback as a hermit and Buddhist. Documentary filmmaker Jiří Holba sought Soukup out on his large property in the bush, where he builds secret shelters and lives away from civilization. The film, which Holba shot entirely alone on location, presents spontaneous conversations and situations that fully capture Soukup’s distinctive charisma. The film’s series of monologues are a kind of stream of thoughts that are part mad rambling and part insightful observations on life.

“I’m interested in a film as a poem, a touch of life, a wave of a magic wand, a sudden burst of a spark in the infinite darkness, a solution of a puzzle. No beginning, no end, everything in a compact space. And love.” J. Holba

biography

Jiří Holba (1982) studied photography and subsequently film. He has shot several short films, including A Sponge Cake with Rapsberries (1999), Vrcoo (2000), Mayn Rue Plats (2002), and Muhammad’s Rug (2004). Feral marks his return to directing after a pause of several years during which he traveled the world.