Film Archive

Short Cut

Czech Films 2017–2018 2018 / Na krátko / Czech Republic 2018

Eleven-year-old Jakub can’t stand his stepsister or his domineering grandma. To make matters worse he finds out that his workhorse of a mother lied to him about his father, who is certainly not navigating any maritime vessel, as she would have him believe. Family ties are sorely put to the test in Jakub Šmíd’s understated drama, an adaptation of the award-winning novella To Disappear by Petra Soukupová.

Synopsis

“My mom? She’s quite nice to me, but she’s always tired.” “My sister? She’s my stepsister. She’s terrible.” “My dad? He’s a sailor based in Sweden. He left us when I was a baby.” Eleven-year-old Jakub doesn’t have too many good things to say about his family, and his opinion of them worsens when his bossy grandma turns up at their small-town prefab flat. When the schoolboy discovers that his mother lied to him about his father, the atmosphere at home becomes even more strained. Director Jakub Šmíd presents a loose adaptation of Petra Soukupová’s novella To Disappear and, through the eyes of little Jakub, he considers relationships deformed by blame, wrongdoing and passive aggression. In the bleak winter surroundings, where reality shatters all illusions, the bet is on whether it’s possible to put together a tenable family model.

Jan Škoda

About the film

107 min / Color, DCP

Director Jakub Šmíd / Screenplay Petra Procházková / Dir. of Photography Vidu Gunaratna / Music Skupina Květy / Editor Tomáš Vrána / Art Director David Dubenský / Producer Viktor Schwarcz / Production Cineart TV Prague / Coproduction Česká televize, Up&Up production / Cast Jindřich Skokan, Julie Issa, Petra Špalková, Marta Vančurová, Martin Finger / Contact Cineart TV Prague s.r.o. / Distributor CinemArt, a.s.

About the director

Jakub Šmíd (b. 1984). Selected filmography: Non-Swimmers (2011, short), Prague, My Love, (segment “The Secret of the Monument”, 2012), Amanitas (2015, short), Laputa (2015), Short Cut (2018)