Karlovy Vary Competition Entry ‘We Have Never Been Modern’ Takes on Conventional Thinking and Storytelling
variety.comWill Tizard Contributor In Karlovy Vary Film Festival competition entry “We Have Never Been Modern,” Czech director Matej Chlupacek takes on both the dangers of Utopian bubbles and the power of unbending faith in traditional gender concepts.
The story, set in a Slovak company town built by a visionary industrialist, takes place on the eve of World War II, as a murder mystery threatens to upset the idealized community.
The factory director’s wife Helena, played by Eliska Krenkova, is an aspiring doctor who is soon to give birth. But her rosy future is suddenly darkened by the discovery of the body of a newborn intersex baby in the factory’s courtyard.
All these elements might seem like a heavy burden for a young indie filmmaker who eschewed film school and whose last effort at making a feature was a decade ago, “Touchless” – made when he was a 17-year-old debut writer-director.
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