In 1989, Helena Třeštíková begins to film the juvenile prisoner René. She follows the rhythm of his life for almost twenty years, a life spent in prisons, interrupted only by brief periods of freedom. Twenty years in which epoch-making upheavals unroll, in which systems, forms of government and regimes change – hinted at by television images that filter into René’s cell. The stagnation and absence of tempo “inside” is juxtaposed with a restless “outside” where René is moving in squares, at stations and in trains – without ever arriving anywhere. The link between inside and outside is the director herself, who becomes the only reliable constant in her protagonist’s life. A contradictory, up-and-down relationship that René reflects on in his letters to Třeštíková. Read out by him, they add another layer to the film in which the filmmaker virtually becomes the second protagonist. René, who with her help goes on to become a successful writer himself, turns out to be an equal, but difficult partner, drastically demanding her attention and questioning the relationship between filmmaker and protagonist again and again. The attempts to make him the co-author of this film are part of the story. A story of overwhelming power that goes right where it hurts.

Helena Třeštíková won the 2008 Golden Dove in Leipzig for “René”.

Grit Lemke, DOK Leipzig Catalogue 2008