The Prison of History

Jan Gogola ml., Matěj Hrudička / Czech Republic / 2023 / World Premiere / 94 min.

synopsis

Set history free. A modern history, enclosed for more than a quarter of a century in an abandoned prison in Uherské Hradiště with unique rooms preserved from the 1950s. The authors fill the emptiness of the premises with situational encounters with the building, nature and people who are united by their experience of the place and who are often divided by their life experience. A shared past as a starting point to a shared future.

"I used to go to the Hradiště prison as a boy in a playgroup, without any idea, while playing in the former prison yard, of what happened there two decades ago. I perceive the emptiness of the grounds here, closed since the 1990s, as a manifestation of the historical void within us. I then see the prison of history as an opportunity to open up the site and ourselves, to meet each other as the living and the dead, despite the fact that we come from different generational, ideological and social worlds." – Jan Gogola Jr.

biography

Jan Gogola Jr. (1971) is a director, scriptwriter, dramaturg, publicist and teacher at the Audiovisual Production Studio of the Faculty of Film and Television Studies at the University of Technology in Zlín. Former dramaturg at ČT, head of the programme at ČT Brno, teacher at FAMU and JAMU. At the Ji.hlava IDFF, he presented the films Nonstop (2000), Mám ráda nudný život (2009), Král nic nedělá (2012), Exkurze aneb Historie současnosti (2015) nebo Věčný Jožo aneb Jak jsem potkal hvězdu (2020). He made The Prison of History together with "his" student Matěj Hrudička.

Matěj Hrudička (1994) - studies at the Master's Degree in Audiovisual Production at the Faculty of Multimedia Communications at the University of Technology in Zlín. He directed commercial spots for LOBBY Zlín, the largest e-sports event in the Zlín region, and a spot for the 20th anniversary of FMK UTB. He is currently finishing a children's short film, Little Escape, co-produced by CT.

more about film

director:	Jan Gogola ml., Matěj Hrudička
producer:	Anna Stránská, Lubomír Konečný
photography:	Adam Černich
editing:	Tereza Chovancová
music:	Ivan Palacký
sound:	Vincent Stránský
executive producer:	Martina Chytková
Script Dramaturgy:	Pavel Zarodňanský, Irina Minaříková, Ivo Bystřičan