Communism and the Net, or the End of Representative Democracy

Nov 5, 2019

5h 35m

★ 0.0

Overview

The six-hour essay in four parts examines the history of regimes and revolutions, leaders and martyrs, from a philosophical perspective. The collage of personal memories, staged scenes and archives of collective memory compares the Prague Spring to the Velvet Revolution and shows the exposure, conflict, crisis, and catharsis of the post-communist society.

Genres

Documentary

Production Companies

Background Films

atelier.doc

Česká televize

Universal Production Partners

Communism and the Net, or the End of Representative Democracy Trailers

Cast

Self

Karel Vachek

Self

Jiří Brožek

This documentary aims to register this unknown side of James Joyce: His Greek Notebooks. Trieste. Bloomsday, 2013. Dance in slow motion, accompanied by text. By deconstructing the body, we turn it into a memory: of the body, of life, of texts. The biographical references to Joyce and Mando Aravantinou, combined with the diagonal slicing of the image, cancel the realism of the landscape, including that of the Narrator’s space/study. As a culmination, Joyce’s letter “A request for a loan in Greek” functions as a timely denunciation. Various routes through cities, such as Trieste, London, New York, and Athens; languages such as Greek and English. In addition to the primal myth of Ulysses, there is another issue: Greek is “the language of the subject of Ulysses”

0.0

Dear Tom

Jan 1, 2003

A video-letter to Thomas Hoving, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and author of the unforgivable "Art for Dummies".

0.0

Charlie Marx and the Chocolate Factory

Jan 1, 2009

Charlie Marx and the Chocolate Factory started as an investigation of the link between politics and chocolate, at the Karl Marx Confectionary Factory in Kiev, Ukraine. Since access to the factory was denied, the project had to be re-considered, re-invented or re-enacted. Mostly made of archival footage and re-enacted performances based on the company's website, the film merges what was left of the initial idea with what has been collected and realized instead. It borrows from the genres of video art, 'Man on the street' interview, direct address, corporate film, essay, and music video, without legitimately belonging to any of them. The film unravels as a reflection on its own failure, and yet keeps on investigating what has always been at stake: the shift from public to private property (and from analog to digital technology), dialectics of permanence and change, language as a mirror of ideology, and post-Soviet oligarchy culture.

No Image

8.0

Bohemia Docta or the Labyrinth of the World and the Lust-House of the Heart (A Divine Comedy)

Dec 16, 2000

A labyrinthine portrait of Czech culture on the brink of a new millennium. Egon Bondy prophesies a capitalist inferno, Jim Čert admits to collaborating with the secret police, Jaroslav Foglar can’t find a bottle-opener, and Ivan Diviš makes observations about his own funeral. This is the Czech Republic in the late 90s, as detailed in Karel Vachek’s documentary.

0.0

El Estado soy Yo

Sep 18, 1981

The images from the landing of the first expedition of the spaceship Columbia are juxtaposed to a reflection on the function of the visual medium, and artistic creation as a whole.

8.0

Children of the Decree

Jan 12, 2005

Procreation is the social duty of all fertile women, was the political thinking during the 1960s and 1970s in Romania. In 1966, Ceaucescu issued Decree 770, in which he forbade abortion for all women unless they were over forty or were already taking care of four children. All forms of contraception were totally banned. The New Romanian Man was born. By 1969, the country had a million babies more than the previous average. Romanian society was rapidly changing. By using very interesting archival footage and excerpts from old fiction films and by interviewing famous personalities from that time – gynecologists or mothers who were part of the new society - the director revives this period of tremendous oppression of personal freedom. Many deaths were caused by the mere fact that women, including wives of secret Romanian agents, famous TV presenters, and actresses, had to undergo illegal abortions. Many women were jailed for having them.

0.0

Aquela Mesma Estação

Mar 16, 2021

No overview available.

5.2

Visions of Europe

May 1, 2004

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

5.7

Pif, Behind the gimmicks

Jan 31, 2015

Taking stock of the extraordinary adventure of "Pif Gadget", a French publishing phenomenon of the 1970s-80s and even of the whole history of children's press. For the comic-strip magazine with the iconic dog, created in 1969 by the French Communist Party, often reached a million copies. With editions available for all of Europe (including Germany, under the title Yps), and on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

3.0

Pathway

Mar 25, 2012

Xu Xin’s film “Dao Lu” (China 2012) offers an exclusive “in camera” encounter with Zheng Yan, an 83 year-old veteran of the Chinese Red Army, who calmly relates how he has navigated his country’s turbulent history over three-quarters of a century.Born to a wealthy family in a foreign concession, Yan joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1941 because he sincerely believed in the socialist project, and in its immediate capacity to free China from the Japanese yoke and eradicate deep-rooted corruption.

3.0

Beyond Tragedies

Mar 16, 2022

Recalling his childhood and relationship with his mother, a film student tries to understand the origin of his love for cinema and tragedies.

6.0

Unity SPD – KPD

May 1, 1946

Documentary about the merging of the Communist Party of Germany and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany in the Soviet occupation zone, a merger that would lead to the creation of the Socialist Unity Party that would rule the soon-to-be-created East Germany until 1989.

8.6

Ôrí

Sep 28, 1989

A look at the Brazilian black movement between 1977 and 1988, going by the relationship between Brazil and Africa.

0.0

Swimming, Dancing

Sep 30, 2023

Swimming, Dancing examines audiovisual representations of the Yangtze (1934–present), from silent film to video art to the contemporary vlog. Inspired by the city symphonies of the 1920s, Swimming, Dancing pieces together a “river symphony”, evoking the images, sounds and contradictions that make up the river’s turbulent history.

7.0

Letters to a Father

Jun 30, 2016

The author's personal confession. This essay film about the relationship between father and son is filmed exclusively in 16mm film in Prague, Slovenia, India, England and France. An important component of Brajnik's film narration is the musical composition and accompanying voiceover of the artist's alter ego.

7.8

In the Intense Now

Nov 9, 2017

A personal essay which analyses and compares images of the political upheavals of the 1960s. From the military coup in Brazil to China's Cultural Revolution, from the student uprisings in Paris to the end of the Prague Spring.

6.3

Yugoslavia: How Ideology Moved Our Collective Body

Apr 1, 2013

A research-based essay film, but also a very personal perspective on the history of socialist Yugoslavia, its dramatic end, and its recent transformation into a few democratic nation states.

0.0

The Long Road Through Balkan History

Jan 1, 2009

Bosnian Croat writer Miljenko Jergović and Serbian writer Marko Vidojković replace one another by the steering wheel of Yugo, a symbol of their common past while driving on the Brotherhood and Unity Highway that stretched across five of six republics of Yugoslavia.

10.0

gap

Sep 13, 2023

Stream of consciousness awakened by the shots of an inauspicious summer.

Communism and the Net, or the End of Representative Democracy

Overview

Genres

Production Companies

Communism and the Net, or the End of Representative Democracy Trailers