Private Universe - Soukromý vesmír
Not unlike a compressed edition of the classic Up series, Private Universe is a fascinating documentary, 37 whole years in the making, chronicling the life of one Czech family, the Kettners.
Honza is born in 1974 into the cheerless era of socialism in Czechoslovakia. At that time, his parents Jana (a childhood friend of the director) and Petr are living in one room in the Prague apartment of Jana's divorced mother and her widowed grandmother. A few years later, the family move to the smaller city of Liberec, where Petr finds a job and a little house for the family. Throughout, Petr writes a family chronicle, something he has in fact done now for 37 years, providing the perfect springboard for director Helena Třeštíková, a rare specialist in long-term documentary portraits. The remarkable Private Universe is her longest-spanning portrait to date.
Archival footage interspersed throughout illustrates the changing political and social climate in Czechoslovakia and later, in the Czech Republic, and features regular, often humorous, cameos from superstar Czech crooner, Karel Gott.
Director Helena Třeštíková Producers Kateřina Černá, Pavel Strnad Production Company Negativ Film Productions
Very thankful to organizers to bring Czech and Slovak movies to Australian cinema. I enjoyed it very much.