Biographies of the Creative Team
Director – Tomáš Bojar
Tomáš Bojar (1981) has a degree in political philosophy and law and a Ph.D. in moral philosophy from the Charles University in Prague. He has been active in the film industry since 2003, first as a script writer and a script editor, later also as a producer and a director. As a scriptwriter he worked on multiple film projects in a creative duo with Pavel Abrahám – most notably on two feature length documentaries, Czech RAPublic (2008) and Two Nil (2012).
Together with Rozálie Kohoutová he directed feature-length documentaries FC Roma (2016) and Off Sides (2019). In 2018 he completed a feature-length documentary Breaking News. He is a co-author of the script of Martin Mareček’s movie Over the Hills (2019) and a co-author of the concept of Erika Hníková’s film Every Single Minute (2021). In 2022 his documentary feature Arts Examination (together with Adéla Komrzý) won the Proxima award at IFF Karlovy Vary.
His films have been screened at numerous international film festivals, e.g. Karlovy Vary IFF, Visions du Réel Nyon, BAFICI Buenos Aires, London Open City Documentary Festival, DOXA Documentary Film Festival Vancouver, Kasseler Dok Fest or Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Editor – Šimon Špidla
Šimon Špidla studied cinematography at the Film School in Zlín and editing at FAMU in Prague. He has made a series of contemplative films, including Na náplavce (2003), Shift (2004), which was screened at the major film festivals in Anger and Clermont-Ferrand, Josef Božek (2005) and a short study on the Sa 58 submachine gun For internal use only (2006). In 2011, his film Into Oblivion premiered, with which he was nominated for the Pavel Koutecký Award 2012, won the Czech Radio Award for Best Sound at the One World Festival 2012 and was screened at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.
As an editor, he has worked with many leading Czech filmmakers, including Věra Chytilová, Jan Němec, Erika Hníkova, Martin Řezníček, Lucie Králová, Adam Oľha, Robert Sedláček and Jan Šikl. He worked with Pavel Abrahám and Tomáš Bojar on the feature films Czech RAPublika (2008) and Dva nula (2012), and edited Marta by Marta Nováková, which was awarded the best debut at the Cottbus 2006 festival, and Bába (2008) by Zuzana Kirchnerová, which won the prestigious Cinéfondation award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009. He is the co-author of the feature-length screenplay Ritual (Tomáš Bojar, Ondřej Gabriel). In recent years, he has edited the film 8 Heads of Madness with Marta Nováková, as well as the three-part documentary series Czechoslovaks in GULAG (Trilobit Main Prize 2018), the feature documentary Extraordinary Report with Tomas Bojar (in competition at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2018), and the documentaries Stolen State and Purgatory with Zuzana Piussi. With Jane Šikl, the feature-length essay Reconstruction of Occupation in 2021.
Besides editing, directing and screenwriting, he teaches practical courses in editing composition at the Department of Anthropology of the Faculty of Arts at the University of West Bohemia and since 2020 he has been teaching at the Department of Editing at FAMU. He has worked as a lecturer in the Mystreet films programme and has led a workshop on editing composition at the Central European University in Budapest.
He is co-founder and chairman of the Czech Association of Film Editors.
hudba Stroon
Stroon has been a vibrant element on the Slovak music scene for more than a decade. Not only thanks to the vibraphone, his most common instrument, but also because of countless projects and cooperations where he has left an imprint. Dreaminess, contemplation, strife for weightlessness, conceptualism – all those are ideas behind his music. Modality, rhythmic structures, minimalism, distortion, synth-scapes and proto-melodics are used in the music itself. His live-sets and production as well are site, time, audience and project-specific, resulting in a blend of electronic & acoustic compositions which aim to discover new horizons and levels of immersiveness.
Stroon first made his mark in 2010 with his debut Ruine Noire, much acclaimed by critics and promoters. He has followed this with a new album every year acting as a report of his current musical direction. Smithereens, Triple Farewell and Impermanence meant discovering his own “electronic” language, gradually enriched by the vibraphone. This effort climaxed with the single Astatine that became one of the most played singles on Radio_FM. A short EP Chosen Months (2015) presented a sudden dive into his metal background. Solar Preludes (2016) merged the opposite worlds of distorted guitars and vibraphone into a coherent electronic whole. The album got two nominations at Radio_Ahead Awards. RHA festival also premiered his composition Songs of Concealed Amplitude, written for ensemble, electronica and soprano and the album was released on his own imprint Frequent Fires in early 2020. After Vice Laboratory, Temple Timbre Embers was his second release on Deadred / Starcastic records. Frequent Fires also published Überhormones (for choir and electronica) and Folklore not War (theatre OST).
A large portion of his works has been made specially for theatre (Shift, Folklore not War), dance theatre (Fettered to the Moment, Off the Ground), films (Empty Spaces), series and shorts (IKONY, Kraj, Art Warm-up) silent films (Extase, Adventures of Prince Achmed), site-specific performances (White Night, Slovak National Gallery), events (Eset Science Awards) and commercials.
Sound Design – Václav Flegl
Václav Flegl studied sound at FAMU and musical theory at Faculty of Arts, Charles University. He worked as an intern at Middlesex University in London in the areas of sound design, theory and the aesthetics of sound. He has been actively working in the field of film and television sound for many years – working on numerous documentary and feature projects. Václav founded Sounderground, a company that focuses on production of films with an emphasis on artistic excellence.
Cooperation on the script – Marek Šindelka
Marek Šindelka is a poet and writer. He made his debut with a volume of verse, Strychnine for which he was awarded the Jiří Orten Prize 2006. He is the author of the novel, Aberrant which was later also published as a graphic novel. His next book, Map of Anna, was a set of short stories which was well received by the public. He has twice received the Magnesia Litera Prize for prose first for the volume of short stories called Stay Tuned and then for the novel Material Fatigue. His most recent publication was the graphic novel Saint Barbora.
As a scriptwriter he has worked with directors Michal Nohejl, Václav Kadrnka, Martin Mareček. His script (cowritten with Vojtěch Mašek) for the film Occupation was awarded a Czech Lion for best script and received a Czech Film Critics Award.
