Luke

Otakar Kosek is primarily known as a television director but he also has a number of film credits to his name. Among them is the family drama Lukáš (Luke, 1982), which won the UNICEF Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1983. The story centres upon the relationship between an adolescent boy and his father, whom the boy admires but whose alcoholism is close to unbearable. While his father, Leskovjan, works in the forest, the 12-year-old Lukáš and his brother Kuba each day descend into the valley from their isolated home in the Beskid Mountains in order to go to school. One of his teachers notices that there is something wrong in the family: the father’s heavy drinking frequently results in surly and aggressive behaviour towards his wife and children. The teacher tries to exert a positive influence on the man, but finding a workable solution to the family’s problems is something that remains up to Lukáš… Daniel Vychopeň and Ján Mistrík play the lead roles in this educational film about the harmful effects of alcohol.