Something Like Happiness
Stesti
Bohdan Sláma
A radiography of a group of locals from the working-class district of a small Czech city that bears the scars of industrialisation: a young woman who hopes to join her boyfriend who immigrated to America, her childhood friend who is secretly in love with her, a mother abandoned by her children whose lover can't make up his mind to get a divorce.
With : Pavel Liška, Tatiana Vilhelmová, Aňa Geislerová, Zuzana Krónerová, Marek Daniel
Screenplay : Bohdam Sláma
Image : Diviš Marek
Sound : Jan Čeněk
Music : Leonid Soybelman
Editing : Jan Daňhel
Screenplay : Bohdam Sláma
Image : Diviš Marek
Sound : Jan Čeněk
Music : Leonid Soybelman
Editing : Jan Daňhel
Production : Negativ s.r.o., John Riley // Ostrovni 30, 110 00 Praha 1, République Tchèque // Tel : +420 224 933 755 / Fax : +420 224 933 472 // Email : john@negativ.cz
Distribution: Why Not // 1 bis cité Paradis, 75010 Paris, France // Tel et fax : +33 1 48 24 24 50 // Email : whynot@wanadoo.fr
International sales: Wild Bunch
Distribution: Why Not // 1 bis cité Paradis, 75010 Paris, France // Tel et fax : +33 1 48 24 24 50 // Email : whynot@wanadoo.fr
International sales: Wild Bunch
Bohdan Sláma was born in 1964 and graduated from FAMU in 1997. His graduation film Zahradka raje (Garden of Paradise, 1994) was presented at the 1995 Premiers Plans Festival in the Film School section. He then made the short Akatybilé (White Acacia, 1996) and Wild Bees (Divoke Vcely his first feature film, presented at Premiers Plans in 2003. Stesti is his second feature film. "The story is set in northern Czech Republic with its factories, electric cables, and reinforced concrete viaducts; a modern desert ravaged by coal mines and acid rain, its people going about their lives oblivious. We wanted to film the events from a point of view that allowed the spectator to be an eyewitness and feel close to the characters. Stesti is a personal film for me as for the main actors—I knew the actors I wanted before I even began writing the script. We wanted to make a film about our actual lives."