Friday   16:00
Municipal Theatre of Marienbad
2024, 15 min, DCP, Czech with English subtitles

Directed by: Magdalena Hejzlarová
Producer: Karolína Davidová
Screenplay: Magdalena Hejzlarová
Cinematography: Zdena Sýkorová
Editing: Alexander Kashcheev
Music: Gosheven
Sound Design: Alexander Kashcheev

A young woman challenges the king of chaos himself. The more she tries to win, the less successful she becomes. Through a mythological story, the author reflects on the time when she realized that there are things in life beyond her control.
The experience of a gradual descent down the spiral of exhaustion, accompanied by pharmaceutical life boosters, is told through images that combine stop-motion with other animation techniques. The autobiographical narrative intertwines with a Taoist tale of the powerful ruler of chaos, Hun Tun, interpreted through the author’s voice-over.

Magdalena Hejzlarová is an artist and stop-motion animator. She studied film and television graphics at UMPRUM, graduating with her thesis film Hypnagogia (2017), which premiered at the Ji.hlava IDFF. The film is composed of animated testimonies from people describing their experiences while falling asleep. Magdalena has worked at various art and animation studios in Prague and Rotterdam. She is a freelance artist and animator and contributed to the films Beyond the Border by Florence Miailhe (honorable mention at Annecy 2021) and Alone Together (2018) by Diana Cam Van Nguyen (BAFTA student film award finalist). She also collaborates with artists with disabilities in a visual arts studio in Prague. Along with Hun Tun, she created a radio documentary and podcast series for Czech Radio on the theme of sleep and insomnia.