Family Film
Directed by Olmo Omerzu
A husband and wife set sail across the ocean, leaving their two children to explore the freedom of being home alone. The boat goes under, and so does the family. A dog, stuck on a desert island, is their only hope.
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Karel Roden, Vanda Hybnerová, Daniel Kadlec, Jenovéfa Boková, Eliska Krenkova, Martin Pechlát
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Czech / 2015 / 95’
Rodinny Film
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FICTION - Drama
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Screenwriters Olmo Omerzu & Nebojša Pop-Tasić Director of Photography Lukáš Milota Set Designer Iva Nēmcová Costume Designer Marjetka Kürner Kalous Make-up Kristyna Jurečková, Anke Saboundjian Line Producer Eva Kovárová Editor Janka Vlčková Sound Designer Florian Marquardt Production Endor Film, 42film, Arsmedia, Rouge International, Punkchart films, Ceska televize
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DCP, 1:1,85, colour, sound 5.1
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San Sebastian Film Festival 2015 - New Directors
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"Olmo Omerzu’s second feature is an impressively controlled drama which slowly reveals a bleakly ironic tone as it traces the disintegration of a seemingly happy bourgeois family. (The Prague-based Slovenian director’s well-received debut, A Night Too Young, premiered in the Berlinale Forum in 2012.) On the surface, this follow-up is a rather arid, chilly exercise with a touch of Michael Haneke or Ruben Ostlund, but behind the director’s detached, anthropological view of the human condition lurks an unwavering commitment to six troubled characters (seven, if you include Otto the dog).
Brilliantly measured, yet for this reason also tense and edgy in its charting of a dissolution, Family Film needs no Funny Games descent into malice to make its point." SCREEN
"Slovenian writer-director Olmo Omerzu continues his methodical progress towards the European art-cinema big leagues with debut feature Family Film (Rodinny film), which thankfully proves much more stimulating than its blandly generic title. A structurally ambitious study of a well-heeled Czech household's human and canine members which takes surprising geographical and thematic detours, it premiered in San Sebastian's New Directors competition and could plausibly scoop the section´s $55,000 pot. Further festival play is a given for this Czech-German-French-Slovenian-Slovakian co-production, which among other achievements showcases a highly promising young actress in the form of Elisa Krenkova." HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
"Fun and games for all the family take a mordant turn in “Family Film,” a story of parental negligence and youthful irresponsibility that young and old might prefer to watch in separate rooms. Irony-attuned audiences, however, will find plenty to enjoy in this elegant, darkly unpredictable fusion of ashen black comedy and urgent domestic drama, in which a standard home-alone setup degenerates into a tense worst-case scenario from every perspective — even that of the family border collie. The plucky pup’s own dramatic arc is the most beguiling of many curiosities in Slovenian director Olmo Omerzu’s perverse but poignant second feature, which should turn a number of unrelated heads on the festival circuit — among them, distributors with a taste for straight-faced eccentricity. Don’t hold your breath for a Disney remake." VARIETY
"Family Film is a rich, satisfying experience of a minimalist story line that includes a handful of unforeseen developments, all presented with a firm hand and no desire to shock. The director is in complete control of his material, and while a few characters lack depth or motivation, the last act of the film is a wonderful display of a range of feelings, from passive aggression to love and forgiveness."
PRAGUE POST
"With this sophomore feature, 30-year-old Sloveian director Olmo Omerzulooks poised to joing Michael Haneke and Ruben Ostlund as one of European cinema's premier dissectors of human frailty. The ironically titles 'Family Film' charts the decline of a seemingly perfect middle-class clan after the parents go on holiday, leaving their teenage kids at home. The movie earned some positive reviews at San Sebastian Int'l Film Festival last month, not least for an inspired final act that shifts the focus tothe family's dog, Otto." THE JAPAN TIMES -
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