Phantom of Liberty II

Director's Note:

The main message of the film is a somewhat frustrating point that in the so-called global age, man one is caught in the trap of time which he has set for himself and got stuck in it along with his freedom. However, all the situations included in the narrative must be quite commonplace or banal, corresponding with the viewer's experience as they capture only the typical events around us. No eccentric occurrence should disturb the chain of paradoxes that will be created by putting together mostly conventional scenes that do not share any common context.

PHANTOM OF LIBERTY II explores the boundaries of creative filmmaking in an experimental manner.

Mentor's Note:

Karel Žalud is a stubborn filmmaker who rejects to see the world as others suggest. I cannot but like this quality of his work. His new project challenges the conventions of rational storytelling. Poetry is about a new meaning and it can be found by chance only. Jean-Luc Godard talked about the divine chance in cinema!

(Susanna Helke/ Finland/ USA, Filmmaker)

I think that the proposed project of Karel Žalud is the one that is the closest to the given theme (Breathless…Dominance of the Moment). Apart from the formal acrobatics which will be required in this case, it promises to result into a serious reflection on the current state of things in this world. It will be very interesting and tricky to connect the disconnected.

(Miroslav Janek/ Czech Republic, Filmmaker)

Production Notes:

Author / Director	Karel Žalud
Producer	Jiří Konečný, endorfilm
Camera	Tomáš Nováček
Sound recordist	Jan Štindl
Editor	Petr Smělík
Sound design	---
Composer	Jiří Hradil
Line producer	Lucie Pascu
Running time	59 min.
Shooting format	S16mm
Screening format	35 mm
Sound format	Dolby Digital 5.1

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Short Synopsis:

In the so-called global age, man is caught in the trap of time which he has set for himself and then got stuck in it along with his freedom. Documentary that explores time as a physical quantity that has a crucial impact on our actions, behaviour, perception, social rituals and our general outlook on the world.

Long Synopsis:

A documentary about time which explores its physical quantity as well as its crucial impact on our actions, behavior, perception, social rituals and our out-look on the world. The documentary film will include 5-6 mutually unrelated fragmentary mini stories, or documentary scenes, and the narrative will switch among them using carefully planned associative jumps. All episodes will be ordered in a linear fashion, none of the protagonists or situations will appear more than once. All of the documentary scenes will be included so as to capture the protagonists in an insightful, unrepeatable situation regarding the flow of time and different perception of time.

For example, the time of a runner who wants to win a race; the time of a dying woman; the time of a taxi driver waiting in traffic jam. That is, time as a physical quantity that has a crucial impact upon our actions, behavior, social rituals and our overall outlook on the world, life, eternity or a single moment. That's what the film should convey. The individual protagonists will not know each other; there will not be any external link among them and they will not even know about any further purpose of their participation in the film or what the film could reveal about them.

A concluding note: The selected subject and its form are quite difficult to explain in several paragraphs. Those who feel (maybe rightfully so) that this text is insufficient can refer to a more extensive treatment of the proposal and mainly the first draft of the script. For the future (i.e., until there is a final script) I declare that I am not able to explain the subject in a more understandable, clearer or more coherent way.

Karel Žalud:

Karel was born in 1971. He works as a scriptwriter, author of many proposals, editor, and essayist, director of documentaries, feature films and commercials and as sound designer in Prague. First he studied at the Institute of Chemical Technology and from 1994 - 2002 at the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, Charles University, Dept. of Film Theory.

From 1997 till 2005 he went to the FAMU – Film and TV School of the Academy of the Music and Performing Arts, Documentary Dept.

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Petr Smělík:

Graduated from the Film School in Zlín, where he was honored as Student of the Year in 2006. The pivotal movie for him was the puppet animation, The Tokio Brothers, on which he worked as both producer and editor.

This movie was featured at the festival Japan Media Arts in October 2006 and also received the grand prize at the festival Tokyo International Anime Fair in 2007.

Since then, Petr has worked as an editor and director of a few commercials and documentaries. The range of his experience comes from editing TV magazines, festival minutes, video-clips, documentaries to documentary presentation about the exhibion of Frantisek Vlacil in Prague.

In 2007 founded together with Petr Hastík studio "Vivatscreen Productions" working on multi-media, production and postrpoduction projects. He is co-director and executive producer of the film „The Resolution“ (2008). In 2009 he edited a film by Karel Žalud, the "Phantom of Liberty II".

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