One of the 2021 Emerging Producers, Czech producer
Marek Novák, of Xova Film, tells us what he thinks about the social importance and the future of documentaries
Why do you produce documentaries? Do you understand documentary film as an instrument of social and political change?
Marek Novák: I like to think that I am interested in producing films without choosing between fiction and documentary, because both can reflect on our reality to help us grasp it better.
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I would be careful about understanding film as an instrument for promoting a social change. The world today is too big and complex to be suddenly and radically changed by something as delicate as a single film. But seeing it as a conversation starter, a contemplation which inspires and provokes a train of thoughts that perhaps leads to some kind of action â that is for sure.
One of the 2021 Emerging Producers, Czech producer
Marek Novák, of Xova Film, tells us what he thinks about the social importance and the future of documentaries
Why do you produce documentaries? Do you understand documentary film as an instrument of social and political change?
Marek Novák: I like to think that I am interested in producing films without choosing between fiction and documentary, because both can reflect on our reality to help us grasp it better.
(The article continues below - Commercial information)
I would be careful about understanding film as an instrument for promoting a social change. The world today is too big and complex to be suddenly and radically changed by something as delicate as a single film. But seeing it as a conversation starter, a contemplation which inspires and provokes a train of thoughts that perhaps leads to some kind of action â that is for sure.
film profile], follows a Slovak grave robber and amateur stomatologist, Ondrej Jajcaj, as he prepares to return the dental remnants of Johann Strauss and Johannes Brahms that he illegally exhumed in 2002. Last year, Šprincl finished a series of films called
Moravia, O Fair Land, in which he marries genre with avant-garde filmmaking in an eccentric cine-essay on Czech nationalism. The film cycle shapeshifts through western-musical-folk-horror and social documentary satire, bringing in national myths, local folklore, zombies and death metal while combining lo-fi VHS aesthetics with 8mm and digital cinematography.
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Šprincl is continuing in the same vein of low-budget, guerrilla, avant-garde docu-fiction in his upcoming project
12/02/2021 - The guerrilla project by Petr Šprincl and Marie Hájková merges mockumentary, noir, mystery and sci-fi as it tackles the topic of extremism