Oliver Stone

synopsis

"Dedicated to all the young in whose spirit a search for truth goes on," writes Oliver Stone at the end of one of his most famous movies, the 1991 drama, JFK. A controversial effort at both rational and completely intuitive collection of key pieces of evidence about the Dallas cross shooting on Friday, November 22, 1963, has lost none of its power and value of expression. In this case, the Oscar-winning screenwriter and director, on one hand, reminds an ultimate Renaissance-like figure, almost a perfectionist master of documentary research, while on the other, he acts as a brilliant manipulator and rebel against conventional (not only) film means. His conflicting body of work is based on original and often very personally shaped frescoes aiming at bringing the viewer to make use of critical thinking, discuss and learn more – even at the cost of stirring conflict. It manifests itself across his "Vietnam trilogy" (Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Heaven & Earth), a portrait of devouring power, Nixon, a colossal ode on Alexander the Great, or in his unfathomable TV documentary series, The Untold History of the United States and  The Putin Interviews. His critical perspective on the world and history makes no exception appearing in his latest documentary, JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, which the director is going to personally present during his masterclass at this year’s Ji.hlava IFDF. A former Vietnamese war voluntary flicks through thousands of classified documents published by the CIA and FBI in 2017, putting the legendary assassination into the context of today’s and yesterday’s political struggles. Even 30 years after the release of such a vital political film, Stone still continues in his search for truth. With his latest work, he once again finds the courage to present new hard facts and theories about the life, political work and murder of John F. Kennedy, enlightening us about the state of the contemporary world and a thin line between truth and lie.