Filip Remunda is a renowned Czech director and producer coming to explore what South Estonia has to offer. You are invited to see his two most known documentaries, Chickens, Virus and Us and Czech Dream (co-directed with Vit Klusak) that he was awarded the Czech Film Academy Award.
SCHEDULE
18.00 Chickens, Virus and Us (2021, 74 min)
19.15 Talk with Filip Remunda, moderated by Kaarel Kuurmaa.
20.00 Czech Dream ( 2004, 90 min)
The films are with English subtitles. The entrance is free!
Chickens, Virus and Us
At the onset of the Coronavirus crisis in 2020, we took refuge in the countryside with our three children. While surfing the internet, the children found a video from an Asian food market showing dissected wild animals, including bats. They were shocked to see overcrowded animal cages destined for slaughter. In another video, they learned that the coronavirus had reportedly spread from wild animals to humans in a similar marketplace in Wuhan, China. Reflections on the relationship between humans and animals lead them to the decision to adopt chickens from the cage breeding farm and keep them as their local neighbours do. The children wanted to know why these chickens are pitiful and look so different from the hens in the neighbours’ gardens, and why people treat animals so ruthlessly.
Czech Dream
“Buy nothing” and “Don’t come”. Strange slogans for an advertising campaign. But they draw the attention of thousands of Czechs, who ignore the advice and turn up for the promised opening of a brand new, remarkably cheap supermarket.
Pickles, bread, digital cameras, a portable television according to the advertising brochure, it is all going for a song in “The Czech Dream”. But on the opening day, the new store lives up to the slogans. Behind the façade of brightly coloured cloth, lies an empty field.
The Czech Dream is the brainchild of film students Vit Klusák and Filip Remunda, who dedicated their graduation project at the Prague film school to it. As “store managers”, they dress up in sharp Hugo Boss suits, visit the best designers and advertising agencies and hire a well-known composer for a theme song. Soon, dozens of professionals are working for a non-existent store.
The intention behind it all? Watch the film, the students say in the opening scene, then all will be revealed. One thing we can tell you is that, during the past five years, more than 125 megastores have opened in the Czech Republic. The filmmakers are critical of Czech participation in the EU, while Czech consumers love to be seduced by billboards and advertisements. (IDFA)