The Film The Prison of History
15. May 2024The Audiovisual Arts Studio of the Faculty of Multimedia Communications of Tomes Bata University in Zlín was instrumental in the creation of the feature-length film essay The Prison of History, which was recently released by the distribution company Aerofilms and which resonates in the media and in discussions between the filmmakers and the audience after screenings in Czech cinemas. The film has been selected for the festival competitions at the Jihlava IDFF 2023, One World 2024, Academia Film Olomouc 2024, and it will be screened at the upcoming Zlín Film Festival and the Summer Film School in Uherské Hradiště.
And the prison in Uherské Hradiště represents the main character of the film. The majority of the judicial complex has been closed for thirty years and modern history, including the tragic era of communist terror in the 1950s, is also imprisoned here. The film crew seized this constellation as an opportunity to set the history that is locked up here free with their film. And it did so in the spirit of polyphony – through diverse actors in the generational, ideological and social sense.
Through open interactions, the past is revived in the film. The place of emptiness as a manifestation of the void between us is filled with interaction in an intimate and social dimension: a shared past as a possibility of a shared future.
Actors From the Past and Present
Since the Uherské Hradiště Secondary School of Applied Arts and the school’s cafeteria later began to operate here, the film features not only political prisoners, the former chairman of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the director of the film filmed here, but also daughters of political prisoners and descendants of StB investigators. Historians, politicians, musicians and artists also appear in the film, as well as a daycare workers, a cook, a couple from the neighbourhood visiting the prison with their twelve-year-old grandson, and students of the art school.
An intergenerational meeting also took place behind the camera in the form of a creative team made up of students (Adam Černich, Vincent Stránský, Tereza Chovancová, Martina Chytková and others) and teachers from the audiovisual studio (Lubomír Konečný, Libor Nemeškal, Irena Kocí, Pavel Hruda and others) with the directing duo of teacher Jan Gogola Jr. and the student Matěj Hrudička. The visual identity and the website of the film were created under the supervision of Bob Stránský, head of the Digital Design Studio of the FMC, by students Matyáš Hrubý, Roman Nevrlý and Adrián Gubrica.
The main producer and initiator of the film is the Memoria Society (Anna Stránská, Michal Stránský, who also participated as a graphic designer, and others). In addition to TBU Zlín, the film was produced by Czech Television, the City of Uherské Hradiště, IS Production, Animation Magic and the FILMTALENT ZLÍN Foundation.
More information about the film can be found at vezenidejin.cz.