We Are Never Alone at Contemporary World Cinema section

Shot with a sensitive touch, the film portrays a group of characters in battle with reality and their inner selves. “I wanted to film a picture of a world where the freedom of people is cruelly relative. Where the story is not created by characters who are fully free; the fateful story is happening to the characters, forming and creating them,“ says Petr Vaclav.

Wasteland at Primetime

The new eight-part original drama series produced by Nutprodukce and Etamp for the Czech branch of HBO Europe, will be screened in the Primetime section. The first two episodes of the series premiered during the summer at the Karlovy Vary IFF. 

Wasteland tells the story of a mining village on the verge of extinction. It sits on huge reserves of coal, and foreign mining interests are hatching plans to acquire the village, remove its population and their homes and establish a soulless mining complex. The villagers are divided over their future; some see this as an opportunity for a new life elsewhere, while others want to preserve their homes and traditional life.

The screenplay for the series was written by Štěpán Hulík, writer of the acclaimed Burning Bush mini-series, another HBO Europe production, directed by Agnieszka Holland. Wasteland’s directing credit is shared between Ivan Zachariáš and Alice Nellis.

Last year, the festival’s official program presented short film Peacock by Ondřej Hudeček and coproduction titles Koza by Ivan Ostrochovský and Eva Nová by Marko Škop.