Kytlice, Zimmer frei

The director encounters a neighbour, who has meanwhile become friends with the German woman who lived in his house when she was a child. The two of them even have neighbouring grave plots at the local cemetery. Kohoutová meets the mayor, who intends to raise a monument to those German murdered after the war, without revealing the identity of the perpetrators. And then there are those who refuse to even speak about the past. On her investigations into the past and the long-term social consequences of the expulsion of Germans after the Second World War she encounters open-mindedness, curiosity and empathy, as well as indifference and ignorance.

A constant companion on these travels is Luděk, a starry-eyed painter and patient at the local psychiatric ward whose pictures illustrate the film. His remarkably perceptive, though at times inadvertently comical reactions provide this documentary, seemingly shot with consummate ease, with the occasional absurd undertone. CF