Film Archive

Signal

Czech Films 2011–2012 2012 / Signál / Czech Republic 2012

Two young men show up in a village with a bogus plan to build a mobile communications transmitter. While the mayor sees it as an opportunity for village progress, the locals hope to snatch the income from it for themselves. What begins as a comedy gradually becomes beset with problems that may lead to sticky consequences.

Synopsis

After spending time traveling through the Highlands, Kája and Filip wind up in a small village. There they bamboozle the locals, including a police officer, with lies about the planned construction of a transmitter on a suitable plot of village land. But their practical joke, their desire to let loose a little, becomes a burden the young men will have a hard time shaking off. The local village charms involve more than just relaxation and a few capers; they also include lovelorn and irritable characters whose anger explodes when they discover that their newly inspired hope is a complete fake. This dynamic picture offers up myriad memorable characters as it contemplates the absence of morals, evident not only in the shenanigans wrought by the ambitious young city folk but also in the country dwellers’ behavior: they dream a lot but do little. Here the village is portrayed as rather a more depressing than idyllic place, a refuge for the life-weary. For the inhabitants, the illusion of progress in their village is certainly the worst thing that could happen to them. But the two con men don’t end up with the best prospects either, despite one of them discovering true love.

About the film

119 min / Color, DCP

Director Tomáš Řehořek / Screenplay Marek Epstein / Dir. of Photography Tomáš Sysel / Music František Soukup, Petr Kaláb / Editor Ondřej Hokr / Producer Tomáš Hoffman / Production INFINITY Prague Ltd. / Cast Vojtěch Dyk, Kryštof Hádek, Eva Josefíková, Karel Roden, Bolek Polívka, Jiří Menzel / Contact INFINITY Prague Ltd., Bontonfilm, a.s. / Distributor Bontonfilm, a.s.
www: www.signal2012.cz

About the director

Tomáš Řehořek (b. 1987, Kyjov, Czechoslovakia) graduated from Zlín Film School, but he has been shooting successful shorts since high school. In 2009 he surprised Czech audiences with the drama Changes (Proměny), for which he also served as screenwriter, cameraman, and editor. A year later he shot the raw docudrama One Way Ticket (Piko, 2010), which brought him a Discovery of the Year nomination at the Czech Film Critics Awards; the picture also screened at Karlovy Vary. The black comedy Czech Made Man (2011) demonstrated Řehořek’s stylistic variability, further confirmed by the acrid tragicomedy Signal (Signál). In his work, the director makes use of genre techniques, and displays an ambition to transform current social phenomena.