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Film: Private Universe

(This article expired 19.10.2014.)

On November 14, at 7 pm, West End Cinema will screen the film PRIVATE UNIVERSE (Soukromý vesmír) by Helena Třeštíková. The film captures 37 years in the life of an ordinary Czech family, tracing the life of one man since his birth and picking up reflections of social changes in the process. A Q&A; with the director follows the screening.

Private Universe
Soukromý vesmír

DIR: Helena Třeštíková
2012, 83 min, Czech with English subtitles

Q&A with the director following the screening!

Honza was born in 1974 into the cheerless era of socialism in Czechoslovakia. At that time, his parents Jana and Petr lived in one room in the apartment of Jana's divorced mother and her widowed grandmother. A few years later, the family moved from Prague to Liberec where Petr found a job and a little house for the family. When Honza was born, his father began writing a family chronicle and he has continued to do so for 37 years. This film shows not only the life of one ordinary family but also how the Czech society has changed in the last four decades.

Helena Třeštíková studied documentary filmmaking at the Film and Television Academy of the Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU). Since 1974, she has worked as a professional filmmaker, shooting almost fifty documentary films of various lengths on themes of interpersonal relationships and social problems. In the course of time, she specialized in the longitudinal approach, following people’s life stories on a long-term basis. For a period of six years, her first series of time-lapse films followed the everyday lives of several young married couples from the moment of their wedding. For her film René (2008), she was awarded by the European Film Academy (EFA) the 2008 Prix Arte for Best Documentary Film.     

Event Details:
Location: West End Cinema
2301 M Street, NW, Washington, DC 20037
(Entrance on 23rd Street)

Tickets are available at the West End Cinema box office or online at: www.westendcinema.com.