Screening of the film "Events of Pavel Štechy"

Helena Třeštíková and the Academy of Art, Architecture and Design in Prague cordially invite you to the premiere screening of the film
“The Events of Pavel Štecha”
The screening will take place on November 14, 2006, at 16:00 at the MAT cinema, Karlovo nám. 19, Prague 2.
Czech Television will present the film on November 14 at 14:00 at the MAT cinema and on November 23 at 20:00 on the ČT2 program.

The Events of Pavel Štecha
Country: Czech Republic
Director: Helena Třeštíková
Year: 2006
Color: Color
Format: Betacam SP PAL
Length: 54'
Photographer Pavel Štecha created a significant part of his work during the twenty years of normalization. He was a sociologist-photographer, a chronicler of the everyday life of the Czech people: a subject of socialism, an inhabitant of prefabricated buildings, a cottage-goer, and a handyman. His cycles recorded characteristic, almost objective data about life in the 1970s and 1980s. Helena Třeštíková's film opens Štecha's university seminar. Later, mainly in the hospital, we get to know the man who is struggling with a malignant blood disorder that attacks the bones. Štecha consented to the filming, and the opportunity for meetings lasted two years. The documentary will show the sick man's return to life several times. Hope persists even in the patient’s words appreciating the horizon of illness, which transforms the consciousness of values. The personal level intertwines with the professional, as the photographer often points out the moral aspects of things and phenomena. After all, the essence of his work was always the question: What are we, Czechs?, to which he answered with a smile and understanding. The documentary photographer engages in a peculiar struggle with the document about himself. The confession, which testifies to the will and tenacity of a person, is, however, silenced by death. If photography is a testament to what, according to Barthes, "really was," then the film captures the movement of the ephemeral, something essential between the body and the word.