Landscape of My Heart

“I’d say it’s a reflection, a meditation. I’m bringing together two incomparable things: a heart transplant and President Bush’s visit to Prague. It’s a reflection on the struggle for life—for one person to receive a heart, another must die, and in the meantime, the power that crept in at night will leave again. (…) The Landscape of My Heart is about the presence of the danger of power. About fragility—when someone dies, doctors lend you their heart, and in the meantime, that power arrives and can run roughshod over it. (…) It’s a reflection on life and death. But a reflection isn’t a film genre, is it? You see, I want to invent genres. (…) I started putting this film together after heart surgery, when I survived my own death. It was meant to be a kind of psychotherapy. I characterized it as a sketch. That means: a personal starting point and a few notes that point the way elsewhere."

Jan Němec

Following Night Talks with My Mother(2001-2002), The Landscape of My Heart is another autobiographical documentary that straddles the line between an experimental reality show and a fictional essay, in which director Jan Němec explores the reality of his life, fate, and time. The difficult heart surgery he had to undergo at Prague’s IKEM becomes a starting point for his reflections on life and death. A parallel storyline of a similarly documentary nature is formed by the visit of U.S. President George W. Bush and his wife Laura to Prague. “Small,” intimate history thus converges with “big” history, which Němec, however, places within the personal flow of his own life story. The director’s tools are not only reality and fantasy, but also a classic camera and 35mm film, through which he and his collaborators achieve a distinctive character in the moving images. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)

2005 – Czech Lion nomination for Best Art Direction, Jeonju Film Festival nomination for the JJ-Star Award

+ short film

Mother and Son / Mutter und Sohn  

directed by: Jan Němec

starring: Peter Straub, Carlla della Carança, Miroslav Dohnal

Netherlands – Germany 1967 / 10 min. / HD / no dialogue

This film, which runs just under ten minutes, is more of a playful piece or an anecdotal propaganda piece with a serious theme. It is scored only with specific sounds and music, completely without dialogue; only at the end do we hear two sentences spoken in English by a girl’s voice: “Yes, the most important thing in the world is love. The love of one being for another.”