34 actors, one screen, 260 dead — history becomes a haunting video call you can't hang up.
"A documentary anatomy of mass murder for one monitor and 34 talking heads." These are the words the filmmakers use in the credits to describe their project, which thematises the execution of more than 260 Carpathian Germans, Hungarians and Slovaks by Czechoslovak army soldiers near Přerov in June 1945. The “massacre at Přerov” is made present through a minimalist dramatisation of the interrogation footage of direct participants, eyewitnesses, and others. It is as if the characters of ancient theatre were entering the Zoom “stage” and delivering a tragic message of fear, hatred and disinterest across the chasm of time.
Direction
Havelka's theatrical precision turns talking heads into Greek tragedy.
Acting
34 performers deliver devastating restraint — no one showboats the horror.
Editing
The cut between faces becomes its own language of accusation.
Director
Jiří Havelka
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The Přerov massacre was systematically suppressed in Czechoslovak historiography until 1989; this film marks one of its first mainstream artistic treatments.
Havelka adapted this from his own stage production, keeping the theatrical 'chorus' structure but exploiting the flatness of screens to suggest moral as well as physical distance.
CZ
