The topic of Jan Strejcovsky’s debut is the exploration of the origin of both artistic and market value of individual works of art. Documentary a(u)ction essay Is It Worth It? will be a mosaic of stories, situations and stylized scenes from the world of art market. It is one of the most obscure investment areas. Moreover, the world of finance intertwines with the world of artistic creativity, one of the areas of human endeavor which is among the most difficult to grasp. The art market as a space, where authenticity of personal expression meets the power of consumerism.

A documentary, which speaks about people and the world using the metaphor of the destiny of wild birds. It is like a scene from an old Chinese porcelain. Long-legged, long-necked bird lands in a tree. It turns around with slow, feline movements and strides down the slender branch, white-bellied heron (Ardea Insignis), predator living on the southern slopes of the Himalayas. With its impressive two-meter wing span it is the second largest heron in the world. The beauty, rarity and fragility of the Chinese porcelain seems to epitomize their destiny. There are only around 50 of them left in the world. The dramatic lives of these magnificent birds will be depicted in a poetic rather than informative manner as the documentary will follow routine work of an ornithologist, Lubomir Peske. Destinies of the herons and people are intertwined in the ever-smaller world, with one mirroring the other. The movie will watch the efforts of scientists, which do not always end in triumph. Through the daily drudge we are let in on the live relationship with nature in which modern technology plays a crucial role. This particular topic invites the audience to explore the relationship triangle: human-nature-technology. The birds captured on film are critically endangered. And so Lubos’s everyday question: who is missing today? – or as he puts it, in his not perfect French: Qui manque aujourd’hui? – often sadly traverses the destiny of an individual. Among other factors, also thanks to the modern technologies we find out that there are very concrete stories behind the extinction of an entire species.

Supported by / The Czech Film Fund

The cost of living in Prague rose twice faster than the incomes in 2018 while developers’ revenues doubled. The global housing crisis spread in Europe and began to affect the middle class. The author is suddenly forced to move out herself. Leaving her home, she sets off on a journey to seek others in a similar situation paying a high price for the shift in understanding of the meaning of housing. Audiovisual observational triptych searches for the meaning of „home“ and its influence on our everyday lives from three various perspectives. We visit a Spanish „mama hotel“, follow an East European developer in his endeavors and round up in Berlin tailing retirees demanding an expropriation.

Supported by / The Czech Film Fund