The Well

Origin and Year: Czechia, 2024	Director: Tereza Kopáčová
Section: Primetime Killer	Runnning time: 1 x 60 min
24.09.2024 at 19.30	Screening place: Goose on the String Theatre Zelný trh 9
28.09.2024 at 12.00	Screening place: Goose on the String Theatre Zelný trh 9

On 24 September, the series is presented as part of the festival’s opening ceremony with limited capacity.

A propaganda piece of crap. That is how the legendary 1970s detective series 30 Cases of Major Zeman is known in the Czech Republic. Despite the fact that it did not even try to disguise that its main purpose was to promote the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, many of us remember every episode, and the media regularly revisit this pop culture fascination. The new Czech series, whose title refers to the most famous episode of “Major Zeman,” is its specific prequel, coming at a time of popularity of true crime stories. The case of the attempted murder of a family by an old patriarch is inspired by a real case of violence in Vonoklasy, Central Bohemia. But The Well is not a classic true crime. Rather, it may remind us of a number of popular Czech films about family life in the countryside, and shows how colourful people’s lives can be before they become mere “victims” or “perpetrators”. At the beginning of this story we can only detect traces of the germs of later toxicity. In the end, The Well is mostly about love and the need to build a life for our loved ones that is better than what we have known so far.