Late Night Talks with Mother, Jan Nemec (Czech Republic, 2001)

(Nocni hovory s matkou). After his return from exile, Nemec delved immediately into filmmaking. Unlike his generational peers, he did not rely on existing structures and began producing films independently, continuing to develop a personal style without regard for generally accepted rules. Experimenting with digital video formats, this counterpart to Kafka’s Letter to Father finds the director probing his own psyche in the form of a confessional dialogue with his long deceased mother. Nemec turns a fish-eye lens on himself and his birthplace of Prague to create an experimental personal essay film, an “autodocumentary,” which the jury at Locarno International Film Festival recognized with a Golden Leopard for the best video film in 2001.

—Irena Kovarova

• Written, photographed by Nemec. (68 mins, In Czech with English subtitles, Color, DigiBeta)

Followed by a free screening of Metamorphosis (Die Verwandlung) (Germany, 1975). During his exile in Germany, Nemec collaborated with the German station ZDF on this adaptation of the Kafka classic, filmed entirely from the point of view of our hero, recently turned into a cockroach. (52 mins, In German with English electronic titles, Color, DigiBeta)

Total running time: 120 mins