On 4 February 2010, while shooting a documentary about my life, my film crew and I visited the premises of Jan Švankmajer’s animation studio “Athanor” in Knovíz, where we are making an animated video set to Jan Budař’s song “Vydra”, part of the CD Proměna. The video is being shot using a combination of paper and animation, and, once again, I’m working with Kačka Mikulcová (animator and creative collaborator). We shot the documentary section here, with me walking around the studio and discovering several...

Today I’d like to talk about Normal Festival, which took place in between 4 and 7 November, 2009. It’s a festival devoted to people who go about some things a little slower, in other words, people who are sometimes called “mentally handicapped”. Mainly, I want to talk about the participation of the theatre group Inventura, which I am part of. Before writing about it, I should first mention that the main theme of this year was work and that the logo was composed of various tools (for instance, cogwheels, different types...

Yesterday I saw a screening of the film Mary and Max at Světozor cinema. It is clay animation film by director Eliot that tells the story of two pen-pals – an eight-year-old girl (later a grown woman) called Mary from and a 41-year-old Australian man named Max, who has Aspergers syndrome, a form of Autism. The two never meet (when Mary tries to visit him at the end of the film, it is too late), but in spite of this, they forge a beautiful long-distance friendship. Most of all, I appreciated the elements of dark humour....