The year is 2009. Pavel Josek, a prominent scientist and former dissident,
is due to receive State Honour for Bravery. During the shooting of a TV
documentary about his life it comes to light that at the beginning of the
1970s – under pressure from ŠtB, the communist regime’s secret police – he
played a part in its operation to discredit his former friend who was eventually
forced to emigrate. The film recounts the events that took place almost
forty years earlier without a single flashback. An emotional story of guilt
and atonement, the pitfalls of memory and the need for forgiveness, this
family drama sheds light on the practices ŠtB used to discredit the regime’s
opponents.
This is the very first fiction feature film from the Czech Republic or Slovakia
to delve into the issue of denunciation and citizens’ collaboration with ŠtB.
Each name from its infamous archives stands for some individual’s drama,
tragedy or failure, which is brilliantly illustrated by the riveting yet intimate
family story told in the tenth joint project by the Hřebejk – Jarchovský
filmmaking tandem.