“I come from a medical family, a tradition that I wanted to continue for a long time, of care and carefulness. I found medicine to be a job of examining and listening, but also of precision and resolution. Still, the result is always within (up to) the other person. Mediation. Organism. A web of relations.
When in high school, I regularly went to see film showings at the Dlabačov Film Club at the Pyramida Hotel looking over Prague. Almost every film I saw made an impression on me at the time. It sucked me in, irritated me, gave me shivers, gave me fresh air. Then I would walk home past the Prague Castle, down towards the Vltava and on to Vinohrady. Conversations. Sparks.
I started to study at the Documentary Film Department, believing that I had not strayed from the family heritage too much – just in a trace amount, as a tracer. I just chose different dilution, a different type of presence. A different, yet related, type of responsibility. No surgery, antibiotics, rehabilitation or simple belief that the film medium can cure the society. Just a small but important phase of substance. A challenge. A gesture. Joy.”
Martin Mareček graduated from the KDT FAMU and has led the Execution Workshop since 2003. He was at the inception of several social activities – Letokruh, Jednotka, Auto*Mat – and was a musician as well. He is currently one of the most internationally renowned Czech filmmakers and has participated in many films made by his colleagues as a dramaturge.
Martin Mareček made four full-length documentaries. Dust Games (2001), his graduate film about the coincidences surrounding the Prague meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, won the Best Czech Film Award and the Viewers’ Award at the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival. Source (2005) analyses the context of crude oil extraction in Azerbaijan and has contributed to rectifying ownership relations after the construction of the BTC pipeline. This film also won both awards at the Jihlava IDFF as well as more than twenty other international awards. Auto*Mat (2009), a film as a gesture/action and a project aimed at making the city healthier that exceeds the bounds of a single medium, was voted the Documentary of the Decade in the online vote held by Czech TV and the Jihlava IDFF in 2010. Solar Eclipse (2011), capturing the fragile adventures of two Czech development experts in a Zambian village, won the Jury Award, Viewers’ Award and the Silver Eye Award at the Jihlava IDFF as well as winning the Czech Film Critics Award, the Czech Lion award, the Trilobit Fites and the Association of Czech Film Clubs Award.
Born in Prague on 17 March 1974