In Filip Remunda’s documentary “Joy for All,” the Czech filmmaker portrays an invincible protagonist – and a person whose initiative invincibility is in some way tinged with doom. The film had its world premiere this week at the Ji.hlava Film Competition in the Czech Republic, where it won the Central European and Japanese perfect documentary awards.
Vitaly, a former nuclear physicist with reports of excessive cold exposure training, has made his home as a construction worker on the outskirts of Siberia, virtually homeless. While his father and mother, but famous scientists, reminisced about the glory of the Soviet regime he helped build, Vitaly found his passion for Mother Russia with a unique frequency.
Although he is also an acknowledged patriot, who spends his time rebuilding the foundations of broken homes, Vitaly focuses on video weblogs that support the ability to restore homes and the evils of capitalism. But the energetic and impudent galoot seems to be mainly targeted for drilling with ice to swim as normally as possible.
And as the Remunda staff followed him over eight years, Vitaly who began to come back to the awakening of sex, souring in the system that defunded Tutorial City, Novosibirsk settlement built to accommodate scientists under the outdated regime, while the passion for extra only Russia.
Walking on the Day of Might with Communist Party officials and their followers one day, Vitaly decides he’s had enough and admits “these people are full of shit.”
“His story is typical,” says Remunda, “but his behavior is perhaps unusual because he is a trustworthy person and does not hide anything, especially. He reminds me of some characters from Czech literature like Josef Svejk, so with his openness, I can see problems that are usually hidden. I really appreciate that I can see a country that is not covered, Russia, with the eyes of a person who is happy with his president and his country and says that Russia is the freest country on the planet.
Vitaly also has some ideas about the world of real estate. “For real people,” he said, “the house is just a place to sleep. These are the dudes whose house is their whole life, ‘personal territory’ and shit, they are not individuals, just Cut-out cardboard figures. They don’t need to be pioneers, to create or found a problem, all the problems for him were his personality, how much he paid for the brazen money bag on the mortgage, how big the brazen flat was.
Regardless of (or because?) Vitaly’s many colorful rants, he finally landed his daughter, Olga, hauling her into the icy water for a marine-based ceremony. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we don’t get to see much of him – although he also admits in awe that his lover reminds him of Aquaman.
Remunda said she and her editor knew she had a strong enough personality to film after they started watching her when she famously swam under a bridge that Putin opened near her home.
Remunda, a Czech director and producer identified for his confrontational satirical documentaries on social points, is the founder of the Documentary Film Institute in Prague and the indie production company Hypermarket Movie. He is also the writer of the Czech Tv series “Czech Journal” and, as one half of the directing duo with Vit Klusak, has created a gradual stream of films for 20 years that were celebrated at the eighteenth Ji.hlava festival: “Czech Dream. ,” “Czech Peace ,” “Smetana a Good Driver” and “As soon as Upon a Time in Poland.”
So in an ironic way celebrated by Michael Moore, who has promoted the work of Remunda and Klusak, Vitaly’s story gives an unusual insight into the mindset of hundreds of thousands of Russians who remain as patriotic as they are today as they watch their world collapse.
“Welcome to All”
Courtesy of Ji.hlava
Because the ice swimming champion, “I’m not afraid of a coup; I try ahead for it. Any change can be higher, because it can’t be worse.
Taking the flavor of Vitaly’s speech, which Remunda described as a combination of Russian gangster slang and “poet’s language,” is the key, the director said.
The ring of laughter in the cinema corridor from Jihlava’s personal Soviet-era surprise, the center of the DKO tradition, signaled that the “Joy” staff got it right.
In the meantime, with all his actions, Vitaly clearly describes the problems and dysfunctions that Russians are strangely facing, from poverty to shortages to flooded streets and broken down houses.
“The goal is to understand this paradox,” says Remunda. “Why people like Vitaly help the country and the regime when the country does not have a social security system offered when he lives above the poverty line, I guess. But he knows that ‘it is perfect for me.’
“So I used to try to get close to him and understand this paradox. He is about the same age as me and lives about 5,500 kilometers away and because we live in several countries, our political views are very different.
And what about the filmmakers to get that understanding? “I hope so, of course. And I hope it’s in the movie.
Vitaly, after all, will never see the employee’s paradise, as the main act of “Happiness” told conclusively.
“He is really ready to transform society to something higher,” Remunda said. “He’s not the passive type. He’s active. So we wanted to print about his story – he’s really asking for change.
“The film is tragic, after all, because it tells the story of people who helped the regime responsible for the war in Ukraine – there is a human tragedy. However, there is every possibility that if you speak openly and you can be trusted, it will cause others to treat.
Perhaps most surprisingly, Vitaly, along with the late Panasyuk of Ukraine, tend to have families living under the fireplace, thanks to their great hero, Putin.
