Viva Video, Video Viva

Adéla Komrzý / Czech Republic / 2018 / World Premiere / 85 min.

synopsis

Today, analogue video is attractive primarily thanks to the distinctive aesthetic quality of its pixelated image and raster errors. But for Czech artists who first explored the possibilities offered by video art in the late 1980s, this medium represented a path towards freedom. Through a portrait of her grandfather Radek Pilař, one of the pioneers of Czech video art, the director explores her own legacy of imperative creative fascination. Her film’s main story, i.e., the process of reconstructing the 1989 exhibition Video Day, contrasts this enchantment with life in the final days of the totalitarian regime, which different sharply with the adventures of those who decided to emigrate – whom the filmmaker also visits in order to discover forgotten works, get to know their creators, and re-establish broken ties.

“’The computers, which are here with me, quietly tell me they want me to understand them, to live with them. Because we will live with them. But either they’re devils, or they will be gods.’ Radek Pilař.” A. Komrzý

biography

Adéla Komrzý (1992) studies art history at Charles University in Prague and documentary film at FAMU. In 2018, she was chosen to participate in Berlinale Talents and attended a study exchange at the Konrad Wolf Film University Babelsberg. The Ji.hlava festival has previously shown her film Every Palsy Has Its Silver Lining (2014), Czech Journal: Teaching War and Fiat voluntas tua (2016), and An Absence of Reciprocity in Vulnerability, Losses and Risks (2017).

more about film

director:	Adéla Komrzý
producer:	Vít Komrzý
script:	Adéla Komrzý
photography:	Kryštof Hlůže, Jakub Halousek
editing:	Šimon Hájek
music:	Jan Hammer
sound:	Jakub Jurásek
co-producer:	Helena Uldrichová, Petr Kubica
skladatel:	Ondřej Anděra