PRESS KIT PRESS photo © Pavel Jiras, graphic design © Jakub Konopásek PRESSKIT FORMAN VS. FORMAN Czech Republic, France, 2019 78 min Directors: Helena Třeštíková, Jakub Hejna Scriptwriter: Helena Třeštíková Editor: Jakub Hejna Sound Designer: Richard Müller Producers: Kateřina Černá (NEGATIV FILM PRODUCTIONS), Christine Camdessus (ALEGRIA PRODUCTIONS), Alena Müllerová (CZECH TELEVISION), Madeleine Avramoussis (ARTE G.E.I.E.) The film was made with the financial support of the Czech Film Fund, CNC, PROCIREP and ANGOA. The film was co-financed by the Creative Europe program of the European Union and the film incentives program by the Czech Film Fund. World premiere: Cannes Film Festival 2019 SYNOPSIS „I don‛t know what I‛ve discovered about myself. I‛ve discovered that I enjoy doing what I do, that I enjoy telling stories.‟ Miloš Forman the artist. Miloš Forman the man. A filmmaker decorated with Oscars for Amadeus and One Flew Over the Cuckoo‛s Nest. At the same time, a charismatic adventurer with the courage to question himself. His experience with a totalitarian regime bestowed him with the theme of the conflict of an individual with institutions which he kept successfully developing in his American films. At the same time, he never stopped searching for a place where he would feel free. The Forman vs. Forman documentary by directors Helena Třeštíková and Jakub Hejna outlines the journey of the life of the most famous Czech filmmaker on which blows of fate blended with strokes of fortune, personal searching and fumbling. The film is a collage of rare private and official archives, and autobiographic memories narrated by the filmmaker‛s son Petr Forman. „I‛m moved by every photograph of Miloš I see, the more so by a beautiful documentary which takes us through the entirety of his incredible life. Fingers crossed the film does well around the world!‟ Martina Formanová, Miloš Forman‛s wife Helena Třeštíková *1949, Praha Helena graduated in the documentary directing program at FAMU. Since 1974, she has made over 50 documentaries. She focuses mostly on human relationships and social issues, and specializes in time- lapse documentaries in which she follows her protagonists over an extended period of time. Helena is one of the most successful Czech documentarists. She won the main competition at the Karlovy Vary Inter- national Film Festival twice (1998 - Sladké století / The Sweet Century; 2015 - Mallory). In 2010, Helena‛s Katka won the Czech Lion and her René triumphed at the 2008 European Film Awards. Helena co-founded the Film & Sociology Foundation (Nadace film & sociologie, 1994) and the Man And Time Foundation (Nadace člověk a čas, 1994). In 2007, she shortly held the position of the Minister of Culture. Jakub Hejna *1976, Praha Editor and director. In 2001, Jakub started his own film studio called Young-Film. He was the editor of many of Helena Třeštíková‛s successful documentaries (Strnadovi, Mallory, Katka, René) and edited also feature films (Fair Play, 2014, directed by Andrea Sedláčková; Dukla 61, 2018, directed by David Ondříček). He debuted as a director with the Divadlo Svoboda (Theatre Svoboda) documentary about his grandfather, stage designer Josef Svoboda. With Helena Třeštíková, he co-directed the Zkáza krásou (Doomed Beauty, 2016) documentary about the life of actress Lída Baarová. FILMMAKERS’ APPROACH Helena Třeštíková: Miloš Forman was a crucial figure in my life. I loved his films since I was a girl. I lived in the center of Prague and there was almost a dozen cinemas in our neighborhood. I saw all the fairy tales and all the socialist films for children and the youths. When I was 13, a miracle happened: I saw Audition (Konkurs). It changed my world. Suddenly, the life on screen was just like the life I knew in reality. The feeling that movies were about some different, better world than mine was gone. Suddenly, I realized that film didn‛t have to create an illusion and instead, it could express a truth about life! To me, that was a crucial discovery. I fell in love with the films of the Czech New Wave and started dreaming of making films myself. To me, these films were a touch of freedom and became part of my feelings and emotions which later formed me, helped me find my own face, my own identity. If it weren’t for Miloš Forman, I would’ve never become a filmmaker. TŘEŠTÍKOVÁ VS. HEJNA: AN INTERVIEW WITH THE CO-DIRECTORS What was working on a biographical documentary of Miloš Forman like? Helena Třeštíková: From the very start, we knew that Forman vs. Forman would be a comprehensive biographical portrait. It had to be comprehen- sible to both Czechs and foreigners. We wanted it to be understood even by people who weren’t familiar with Forman’s films and those unaware of the historical context. The fact that Forman was not only an important figure but also an exceptionally charis- matic storyteller was an advantage. Jakub Hejna: We managed to get archive footage that wasn’t seen by many people before. We have footage from the 1968 Cannes festival in which Forman is standing in his swimsuit on a beach musing about the importance of freedom. At the last moment, we got our hands on footage from the making of The Firemen‛s Ball (Hoří, má panenko!). We had almost finished our film when we received the 30-minute recording as a bonus to something else from Sweden. We tore down the whole setup and reworked it so that we could incorporate this new, absolutely unique footage! Helena Třeštíková: We spent two months editing the film intensively. Then we took a break, went searching for extra footage and returned to the editing room. Getting some distance from your work is incredibly important to restore the instincts we gradually lose when we‛re immersed in the film every day. It was great we had no limit on the number of days we could spend in the editing room. We had enlightened producers who understood that we needed to take our time with the film. How much archive footage did you have? Helena Třeštíková: We worked with around a hundred items and ended up using around seventy of them. They were all kinds of materials. We had professionally excellent documentaries by Věra Chytilová and Jaromil Jireš. Chytilová pretty much made Forman put on his paja- mas and go to the Chelsea hotel, almost the same room where he spent a year and a half of his life! He‛s recalling his first Christ- mas in the USA while rolling in pillows there. It‛s much juicier than having him say it as a talking head. Jakub Hejna: We wanted to use the most beautiful shots. But sometimes, powerful things were said in the standard TV archival footage. In those cases, we only used the sound and took the images from elsewhere. Often, statements in Czech and English are inter- spersed. It‛s a complex collage. You’ve been cooperating as a director and an editor for many years. How do you complement each other as co-directors? Jakub Hejna: It‛s a dialog of two artists, a search for the right message. I can feel what Helena finds important that the film should reflect and she can tell when I get stuck on something. I focus on the visuals and comprehensibility and Helena concentrates on the content. She comes to the editing room well prepared with underlined parts of statements so that we don‛t have to go through heaps of ballast. Helena Třeštíková: Jakub is very fast and skillful, so we manage to try a lot of possibilities. Then we immediately see which one works best. What difficulties did you have to overcome? Helena Třeštíková: Jakub took it very hard when we had to shorten excerpts from Forman‛s films! Jakub Hejna: I wanted to honor their structure. He made the scenes with a certain timing. Especially the films from the 1960s have a completely different tempo than what we‛re used to today. But we needed to save time. To me, the question was: can I edit this excerpt? Now I know that in the best interest of the overall pacing the answer is probably yes. We usually shortened the dialog. What new things did you discover about Miloš Forman in the editing room? Helena Třeštíková: I was surprised to see what a fantastic storyteller he was. He had a huge acting talent which was also why he was so great at working with non-actors in his Czech period. He was able to show them the emotions in a way that made them understand what he wanted them to feel. Jakub Hejna: I‛m fascinated by the turns of fate he experienced. His fortune and misfortune. His parents in a concentration camp, life-changing coincidences which were probably no coincidences at all and him being able to take advantage of them and turn them into a nar- rative of an individual‛s never-ending fight for freedom against institutions. He elaborated on that theme in his American films as well. Apart from the theme of the fight for freedom, your film also strongly emphasizes Forman’s emotions. What did you think about his questioning himself? Helena Třeštíková: I like people who question themselves very much, because I‛m an incarnation of self-doubt! Jakub Hejna: This kind of creative activity is an endless search, an endless uncertainty. Miloš Forman had achieved great success but with every new film, he was starting from scratch. Over and over again. At the same time even though he had doubts, he had to project con- fidence to maintain his authority.