GPO Platform

Artistic endeavour isn’t about competing; even so, applicants still have to be placed in order of merit at the academy’s entrance exams. But how do you assess artistic talent? And what role can art play in today’s world? A layered, observational documentary which presents a portrait of an institution and a light generational statement in one.

The director Tomáš Hlaváček is loosely building upon the time-lapse documentary Housing Against Everyone, in which he captured the dispute surrounding the Rapid Re-Housing project in Brno. The topic of decent housing for families in need is also addressed in The Impossibility. People occupying rental apartments in Brno's “Kuncovka” wanted hot water, electricity and fair negotiations. Instead, they received bullying and threats from the owner, who, in his own words, “does not like coloured people”. Neither the police nor the city helped them. So they joined forces with activists and lawyers to fight for their rights. Hlaváček chronicles the months-long conflict with its legal follow-up as an engaged observer.

The eponymous debt collection call center’s marketing slogan is taken to its extreme, depersonalized operators are roused from their lethargy by unbridled laughter. Not mockery, but pure, contagious laughter at the tragicomedy of trapped debtors, its echo tearing apart the operator’s apathy and the walls of the claustrophobic open-plan office.

Childlike imagination, naive playfulness and an enchanted view of the world are at the centre of this poetic film. The child protagonists talk about their dreams, fantasies and experiences while touching on metaphysical questions of body and soul, life and death. Magic permeates every frame of this colourful collage.

In his provocative mosaic of opinions from different sides of the political spectrum, Martin Kohout reflects on where the ideals of November 1989 and the former sense of community have disappeared to. He tries to understand the progressive fragmentation of Czech society through two recent events. Both the parliamentary elections in 2017 and the subsequent direct election of the president made it clear that there is no consensus in the country today on even the most basic concepts such as "freedom" or "democracy". Sources of concern, ideas about the country's future direction, and the national myths on which cultural and political figures and disaffected voters rely all vary.