Toyen

“In the darkened hall of life, I watch the projection screen of my mind.”

Toyen

The screening will be followed by a discussion in Czech with Tereza Brdečková, the film’s concept creator and co-screenwriter.

This unconventionally conceived film, directed by Jan Němec, focuses on the life and personality of the prominent Czech painter known by the pseudonym Toyen, her relationship with the artist and poet Jindřich Heisler, and above all on surrealism, which is the central theme permeating both the form and style of the film. The film resembles a dream and a series of variations on the theme of Toyen, born of a free-flowing imagination. It evocatively depicts how this surrealist painter blurred the line between imagination and reality in her daily life, and to what extent she experimented with her own life to penetrate the depths of the subconscious. The traditional cinematic narrative thus fades away, replaced by evocations and forays into various temporal planes and different “worlds.”

2006 – Czech Lion nomination for Best Art Direction, Finále Plzeň – AČFK Award for Best Film