The Ruins of a Film

Martin Ježek / Czech Republic / 2024 / World Premiere / 35 min.

synopsis

(…) Two decilitres of lousy vodka… along the way… in the forest, without witnesses, in two sips (…) Immense brightness and joy… everything is clear, glorious and I don’t care, it takes half an hour, after which the wide angle of the cinemascopic 35mm shutter starts to narrow to 16mm film, still in colour, but all of us ABSENT know what and how it ends. It ends at 8 millimeters, 12 frames per second at most, the picture fades, then a well…

A structural film – a wreck, inspired by a fragment of Daniel Hradecký's diary text and built from fragments of an absent memory, which is replaced by the film medium. A psychophysical experiment examining the creative limits of Ježek's subject both during the ascent into the light of ascetic enlightenment in the high mountains and especially during the descent into the hell of non-memory during severe alcohol intoxication. Degradation of form, degradation of thinking, degradation of creative intention in an attempt to grasp (and understand) the phenomena of abstinence and addiction. A preparatory project for a larger collective work. How can one bear witness to self-destruction and survive at the same time?

biography

Martin Ježek (1976) is one of the most prominent Czech representatives of experimental structural film. He studied production and editing at FAMU. He has been making short documentary essays since 1999, when FOMA started producing 8mm film again. Ji.hlava IDFF regularly screens his works, including auteur films, adaptations (A House Far Away, 2007), or collective films (Second League, 2007).