“What a minor thing to be bothered with in times of invasion. It’s just a bureaucratic record,” scoffs the chorus of critics. Volodymyrivna, Mariia’s patronymic – a middle name derived from that of her father – has disappeared from her international documents. For her, the name is more than just a formality though: it links her to her father and to Ukraine. This personal film playfully combines documentary footage, archive material, official documents and staged re-enactments on a night train. In so doing, it questions the patriarchal concept of the patronymic and sheds light on its postcolonial connections. For Mariia, this is already her third work – following ‘May 9th’ (2015) and ‘Three Windows on South West’ (2023) – in which she grapples with her identity.

Seggen Mikael

“The future is a relative concept. It’s up to us to imagine it.” How right that well-coiffed television show host is, who toasts a possibly colourful future in black and white – at a time when people first set foot on the moon and tanks invade Prague, both with unforeseeable consequences. For who can really know how people will live in a few decades. When Petr begins a diary in 1974 on the day of his wedding with Jana in Prague, he has no idea how the world and his little family universe will develop – and how they will influence each other. When shortly afterwards Helena Třeštíková begins to follow Jana’s pregnancy with her camera, she has no idea that 37 years later this will become her longest-running long-term documentary so far: “Private Universe”. Petr’s diary entries provide the variable structure of this consistently light-handed family portrait. From the diary perspective, great political upheavals sometimes look like marginal notes, first teeth like major events. The changes in Czech society are traced on a small scale – a life between Karel Gott and John Lennon. The full dimension of the film’s title, however, becomes evident only when son Honza, the rebellious one, gradually turns into the actual protagonist. At the hour of his birth 37 years ago, he had no idea that he was already under the camera’s star. A lucky star? 

Lars Meyer, DOK Leipzig Catalogue 2012