Film Archive

Tiger Theory

Czech Films 2015–2016 2016 / Teorie tygra / Czech Republic, Slovak Republic 2016

Can a timid and domesticated rabbit morph back into a feral tiger? Maybe marriage puts the kibosh on a lot of things, but in this hugely successful tragicomedy, veterinarian Jan (Jiří Bartoška) sets off on a last pilgrimage in search of the wild.

Synopsis

Perhaps they were once tigers, creatures that roamed free and allowed no-one to dictate the terms. Yet now they are docile and domesticated rabbits who are wracking their startled brains to figure out just how they got so tame. This is the way things seem right now for Jan (Jiří Bartoška), a veterinary surgeon who believes all his life decisions are being made by his enterprising wife Olga (Eliška Balzerová). With a view to regaining the wilder aspects of his past, the best he can come up with is to feign illness and get himself committed to a psychiatric facility, thus extricating himself from his wife’s influence. His problem is also shared by his son-in-law (Jiří Havelka), whose wife Olga (Tatiana Vilhelmová) is always on his case. Do men really have it that bad? Is it so difficult to work things out with women? Are real men now on the verge of extinction? And can you turn your life around at this late stage? This tragicomedy examining human relationships and gender roles provided a great opportunity for actor Jiří Bartoška in one of this year’s audience megahits.

Jan Škoda

About the film

102 min / Color, DCP
International premiere
Director Radek Bajgar / Screenplay Radek Bajgar, Mirka Zlatníková / Dir. of Photography Vladimír Holomek, Petr Koblovský / Music Jan P. Muchow / Editor Jan Mattlach / Art Director Nora Sopková / Producer Petr Erben / Production Logline Production / Coproduction Česká televize, RTVS, RWE / Cast Jiří Bartoška, Eliška Balzerová, Tatiana Vilhelmová, Jiří Havelka, Pavla Beretová, Jakub Kohák, Iva Janžurová, Lucia Siposová, Arnošt Goldflam / Contact Logline Production / Distributor CinemArt, a.s.
www: www.teorietygra.cz

About the director

Radek Bajgar (b. 1962, Kroměříž, Czechoslovakia) studied medicine at Masaryk University in Brno. He joined the Reflex magazine team as a journalist in 1990, and later took over as editor-in-chief. He studied documentary filmmaking at Prague’s FAMU from 1990 to 1992. He was appointed chief editor of current affairs at TV NOVA in 1994, where he held a number of posts until 2002. He is also a scriptwriter and producer on the first Czech daily soap “The Street” (2005). He headed the format development department at TV NOVA from 2007 to 2012. In 2008 he began as a creative producer of series such as “Branch Office” (2008), “Perfect World” (2010), and “Private Traps” (2008). As a director he created the romantic drama Villa Faber (2011, TV film) and the comedy TV series “The Invisible” (2014). He established his own company Logline Production in 2012, which oversaw the making of his big screen debut Tiger Theory.