In You Will Never See It All [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Štěpán Pech
scheda film] — awarded the Best World Debut prize at the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival — Štěpán Pech takes a dive into the mind of artist Ján Mančuška, who passed away in 2011. He tells a story about a man greedy for life and for time who left way too soon, but also about those who stayed. 

Cineuropa: Congrats for the Best World Debut award. It’s like hearing people say: “We believe in you.”
Štěpán Pech: Yes, I feel the pressure already [laughter]. It’s a great starting point. 

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It’s also a sign that you made Mančuška’s story understandable even to those who had never heard of him before, like me.
In the 1990s, Eastern Europe started to share its content with the West. They had to find the language that would be communicative and yet specific to who they were. It was a topic that was very important to Ján. How do you stick to your local context, making sure it will work everywhere? 

He talked a lot about “stage reality.” He was interested in theatre, because gestures are universal and he was looking for things everyone knows. He was interested in everyday life. German artist Clemens von Wedemeyer was making a video project once: three different places, different times. He asked Ján how to connect these stories. He replied: “They should be eating.”

I wanted to follow his work and way of thinking, and hoped that if I went deep enough, it would be clear. Also, there are two ways to achieve immortality: through your children and through your work. In the film, we follow them both.

This family part is crucial. Once you take away the art, you see two kids trying to get to know their late father. Did it take much convincing?
I pushed them [laughter]. But very gently. 

I was Ján’s assistant once. He was a strict boss, but when he was dying, he said to his wife that if there was a problem, she could always ask me. That I am a reliable person. Knowing that really helped me. I offered his children a chance to go on this journey and promised their needs would be more important than the film. It was a good way of “meeting” their father to figure out what they can get from him, but also how to go their separate ways. We all do that with our parents, we connect and separate, but how do you do it when they are no longer here? 

At one point, looking at his art, his son says these works are closer to the way he thinks. They are timely, but it brings us to another challenge – how do you show someone’s art in a film without making it feel flat?
The point was to make it feel alive. His work is about time and memories, but he would say that history is not about the past. History is a matter of the present. To Ján, art was so ephemeral. Once it’s in a museum, it’s already a relic. If I wanted to meet him through other people, it had to happen now. But how do you create it? I chose his pieces thinking about that very question.

“Now” really is a keyword here. You talk about someone who only had the “now.” Because of his illness, he was running out of time, and he knew it.
He was in his 20s when it started, after his brother’s accident. Which means it was with him basically for his entire career. Did his art influence the illness, or did the illness influence his art? I didn’t want there to be one answer, it’s open, but I am convinced this influence was there. Take the extreme speed with which he was working. He told me he couldn’t come up with new ideas during the day, he was too busy. He had a notepad next to his bed and every morning he would write things down. He only had time to create in his dreams. 

On the other hand, he was a funny, amusing guy. Everyone loved him. Maybe it also comes from this ability to really appreciate the moment? Maybe when you know you are about to die, you just go on and enjoy it?

You do show this humour, like when he is laughing and behind him, some poor naked man is painted for one of his projects. Were there other personality traits you knew you wanted to show?
To be honest, after the premiere I felt I completely fucked up. That I failed in portraying his complexity. I am still struggling with it, but the film is called You Will Never See It All. It’s a good excuse [laughter]. 

I wonder if it’s even possible to capture someone like that and all these contradictions. He was warm, but he could also be brutally honest. If he didn’t like something, he would say it. He was very critical of me, too! He was trying to do things, create things, change things. He wanted people to change, which is why sometimes he felt like a pain in the ass. And then, at the same time, this intellectual also wanted to keep things simple. Every time I talked to someone about him, they would tell me about a different Ján.