Imagine a Film

A film born in your mind – Experimental feature film.

The film isn’t about the story or characters – it’s about you. It’s an invitation to pause, to close your eyes or see the horizon, and let your mind create its own scenes. Rather than me struggling to make a film, I simply let you sit and listen to the words and sounds. Go somewhere neither you nor I have ever been, scenes more vivid than any camera could capture, and imagine a film richer than anything I could ever create. In this space, your imagination becomes the director, the set, and the actors – all guided by the whisper of the voice.

Film screening consists of art installation, retrospective, presentation, the screening itself (possibly with live music), and speed discussion.

History

At the beginning of 2024, I took on the ambitious project of creating a fictional feature film entirely on my own. The working title is “Ju Ju Ju aneb Brambory ve slevě! aneb Život je cesta,” roughly translating to “Ju Ju Ju or Potatoes on Sale! or Life is a Journey.”

The film follows the main character seeking to escape his routine city life. Inspired by a flyer, he embarks on adventures in nature while maintaining connections with friends and a neighbor, ultimately finding meaning and joy in everyday moments. Themes include purpose, friendship, and humor during difficult times.

After writing the screenplay, I received support from the Jiří Menzel Endowment Fund, which was instrumental in purchasing a new camera and motivating me to proceed, with the obligation to finish the film.

With a limited budget and working alone, I explored various production methods. Initially considering frame-by-frame animation with an iPad and ToonSquid, I found it challenging due to my lack of drawing skills. I then experimented with blending head-mounted camera footage with AI stylization using EbSynth, applying a reference image’s style to 4K frames. I also planned to use voice and face swap technologies to play every character myself. This approach was complex, time-consuming, and unsatisfying due to AI elements.

After moving to Denmark, I considered producing the film there, changing the language to English, and significantly altering the story to focus on a pizza shop owner facing mysterious disappearances of employees and customers. I created a detailed technical storyboard using my custom iPad application inspired by Japanese E-konte storyboards and searched for a producer.

Unable to find a producer, in April 2025, I decided to produce the film myself using 3D animation in Blender. This approach soon proved overwhelming, so I chose a different format: a static shot of the sea over which I read the entire screenplay, letting viewers imagine the film — the only way for me to bring the film to life.

Synopsis (outdated)

The Film is a lyrical, magical‑realist portrait of loss, ritual, and renewal, unfolding over five days in the life of a stoic pizza‑shop owner. Branded “Healthy Pizza,” his modest eatery is staffed by a cheerful Assistant, served by a devoted Old Man, and delivered to by a daring Delivery Guy—while a perpetually indecisive Customer lingers just outside the door.

Each day opens with a personal ritual—yoga, swimming, breathing exercises, meditation, or dancing—captured in fluid, twisting camera moves that establish both character and tone. After the morning routine, we follow him cycling through the city onto a beautifully detailed Pizza Shop set, where familiar routines—taking down the sign, kneading dough, serving margheritas—are punctuated by playful “joke” interludes (an OS‑update postponement, shadow puppet gags, playlist skipping) that break the fourth wall and lend the film a wry, self‑aware humor.

As the week progresses, each of his key collaborators vanishes under surreal circumstances:
• The Delivery Guy topples from his bike, then transforms into a glowing spirit and disappears, leaving only a vase in the pizza box
• In the park, the Assistant’s joyful trampoline jump ends with her body dematerializing into a cloud of petals, which are later arranged as flowers.
• The Old Man ascends in a subway elevator, his form dissolving into a wisp, with a lone candle left behind.
• Finally, the Customer, having forgotten both wallet and appetite, vanishes at the counter—prompting the owner’s solitude to give birth to a heart‑shaped pizza.

Each disappearance is answered by a simple offering—vase, flowers, candle, pizza—placed on the shop’s windowsill in a quietly moving ritual of remembrance and hope. In its final act, the heart‑shaped pizza sparks an unexpected dance with a returning stranger, suggesting that creativity and compassion can fill even the deepest voids. With its 45 finely keyed scenes and continuous serialist score, The Film becomes both a gentle fable about community and a meditation on impermanence and the ways we honor those who depart.