Helena Třeštíková’s new documentary film Private Universe creates a 37-years-long, personal documentary parallel to general history. She managed to record everything that has been writing one Czech family’s own story on the foreground of the space race era since 1974. Originally a documentary short about the changes a woman undergoes after giving birth to a child, the project turned into an epic that is built upon Třeštíková’s canonic authorial voice.
Although the film’s premiere took place this year in January, Private Universe managed to win the Best Project Award at the 2009 edition of MEDIA European Talent. The documentary was screened at 2012 Hot Docs in Toronto, a significant documentary film venue in the region, and enjoyed remarkable reception. At this moment East Silver Caravan dispatches Private Universe towards new festival destinations, such as DOK Leipzig, 8th Taiwan Film Festival, United Nations Association Film Festival in San Francisco or Flaheritiana Intl Documentary Film Fest in Perm, Russia.
Private Universe
Soukromý vesmír , Czech Republic, 2012, 83 min, 35 mm, Longitudinal, Personal View, Social Issues
Honza was born in 1974 into the cheerless era of socialism in Czechoslovakia. At that time, his parents Jana and Petr lived in one room in the apartment of Jana's divorced mother and her widowed grandmother. A few years later, the family moved from Prague to Liberec where Petr found a job and a little house for the family. When Honza was born, his father began writing a family chronicle and he has continued to do so for 37 years. “Family Diary“ shows not only the life of one ordinary family but also how the Czech society has changed in the last four decades. Who are we, where do we come from and where do we go?
