AFO Wednesday: Film delicacies from the biggest world festivals

You can kick-start Wednesday with the film Looking for Simone. This is a must-see not only for all scholars of Simone de Beauvoir and her groundbreaking book The Second Sex. It’s not an uncritical, admiring pamphlet, but a recontextualization that does not shy away from the blind spots in the author’s work and examines its relevance in today’s world. The film had its world premiere at DOC NYC, the largest all-documentary festival in the U.S., and will screen for the first time in the Czech Republic at 11.30 a.m. at Sedmička Hall.

Another film that not only premiered at the largest and most prestigious American film festival of all, Sundance, but also took home two awards from the event. André Is an Idiot, which you can see for yourself at Metropol Cinema starting at 1.00 p.m., won the Audience Award for Best American Documentary and the Award for Best Editing there. This fresh and playful film about the immensely difficult topic of coming to terms with impending death features an unorthodox approach to the subject matter and, above all, a unique protagonist. The film will be followed by a discussion with Václav Liška and Petr Hříbek from the National Institute for Cancer Research.

And if today’s high-quality American documentary scene still isn’t enough, you can treat yourself in the evening to another serving with Humboldt USA. Who was Alexander von Humboldt? The filmmakers behind this documentary, premiering just days ago at the prestigious Swiss documentary festival Visions du Réel, explore his legacy through places named after this naturalist. How do you enter into a dialogue with a scientist from the past while creating a fascinating microcosm of contemporary people and places? Come and find out at the exclusive Czech premiere at the Corpus Christi Chapel at 7.00 pm. The film’s director G. Anthony Svatek and cinematographer Sean Hanley will be there.

All the films mentioned so far are part of the festival’s International Competition, but as every year, AFO also offers thematic, non-competitive sections. One of them is the Culture of Victory section, which explores the sociology of sport. This fascinating field has the potential to bring people together into close-knit subcultures, but also to generate social tensions. The section includes, for example, a double screening of The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner and One Meter Is Six Centimeters, shown back-to-back at the Corpus Christi Chapel from 9.30 p.m. The former is the work of an absolute legend, the German visionary Werner Herzog. In the film, Herzog examines, through the case of ski jumper Walter Steiner, whether madness is a necessary and sufficient condition for stepping onto a ski jump. Ski jumping is also the subject of the second short film from Slovenia, which follows the moving story of a man whose asthma prevented him from fulfilling his dream of becoming a ski jumper. Yet it did not stop him from pursuing his passion entirely…

In short, a wonderful programme that can easily fill your entire Wednesday, though you’ll still have to make some tough choices about what to sadly miss. Best of luck with your selection!