Národní divadlo

The young couple Uli and Vanilla want to split up, but lust and money get in their way.

One of Vítězslav Nezval's most striking stories about unfaithful yet devoted love, full of suspenseful twists and turns and an enchanting chivalrous world, was first staged at the National Theater in 2016, losing none of its impressiveness and power. In 2021, Daniela Špinar, director of the original theater production, retold it in a highly original form using the language of film, shooting it as a film project in the authentic surroundings of the historic theater building.

"A documentary anatomy of mass murder for one monitor and 34 talking heads." These are the words the filmmakers use in the credits to describe their project, which thematises the execution of more than 260 Carpathian Germans, Hungarians and Slovaks by Czechoslovak army soldiers near Přerov in June 1945. The “massacre at Přerov” is made present through a minimalist dramatisation of the interrogation footage of direct participants, eyewitnesses, and others. It is as if the characters of ancient theatre were entering the Zoom “stage” and delivering a tragic message of fear, hatred and disinterest across the chasm of time.

Human kindness and purity in a corrupt world will never go out of style. This is proven by Fyodor Dostoyevsky's more than 150-year-old story "The Idiot," which continues to inspire new adaptations and resonates with contemporary audiences thanks to its timelessness.