Review: Hello, Welcome

by Martin Kudláč

08/08/2024 - In Šimon Holý’s film, the friendship shared by three actresses is put to the test when their careers hit a critical juncture at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

l-r: Alena Doláková, Eliška Soukupová and Sára Venclovská in Hello, Welcome

Emerging Czech filmmaker and producer Šimon Holý concludes his trilogy on women's transformative experiences with the comedy Hello, Welcome. The series, which began with his lo-fi debut, Mirrors in the Dark [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Šimon Holý
film profile], and continued with the inter-generational portrait And Then There Was Love… [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Šimon Holý
film profile], takes a more whimsical turn in its final instalment, delving into the trials and tribulations of young actresses in the audiovisual industry, in a comedy shot on location during an actual film festival. The movie is out in Czech theatres today, 8 August, courtesy of Aerofilms.

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The film opens with a series of clips of actresses auditioning for a role in a romantic comedy. Among them are three friends: Ema (Eliška Soukupová), Adéla (Alena Doláková) and Soňa (Sára Venclovská), who then embark on a trip to the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, where Adéla is premiering a new film. She believes she stars in the leading role. Soňa, from an acting family, had her career handed to her but feels burnt out. Ema, experiencing a dry spell, begins to question her career choice. Amid the hubbub of the festival, they experience the sobering reality of what it means to be an actress.

Hello, Welcome offers a behind-the-scenes look at the challenges of an acting career, beyond the glitz and glamour of glossy magazines and red carpets. Holý portrays the trio in an almost archetypal fashion: Adéla, seemingly the most popular, gets a shock when she sees what made it into the final cut of her film. Soňa, indifferent to acting, is a fun seeker who enjoys parties and neglects to tell her friends that she also participated in the casting for the “dumb” romantic comedy. Ema, down on her luck, reeks of hopelessness and resorts to cringe-worthy actions to land a job, but her struggling career takes the biggest turn of them all. Holý's previous films in the trilogy have been lo-fi, almost chamber conversational dramas. Hello, Welcome unfolds at various well-known locations of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, shot in a semi-guerilla style. The film is openly a comedy, a significant shift from Holý’s previous dramas.

Hello, Welcome straddles a dichotomy, as it is a comedy about actresses while also semi-skewering the industry. The friendship shared by the protagonists is put to the test and strained by their careers. Their trials and tribulations provide comic fodder, and their antics veer towards soft caricature. However, with an insider’s eye, Holý reveals the actual life of an actress, focusing on their performativity on social media and in social interactions while critiquing the industry's treatment of women, focusing especially on objectification and sexism. The film’s depiction of the industry has a satirical edge with occasional melodramatic undertones, especially as Adéla suffers a meltdown, Soňa turns out to be a poseur and Ema emerges as the protagonist.

Holý’s latest feature is a Czech take on the genre of meta-festival films in the vein of Hong Sang-soo's Claire's Camera [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Sophie Letourneur's Les coquillettes [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. The aesthetics are somewhat raw, as the semi-guerilla shoot suggests. The director employs tight framing of the protagonists in conversation-driven situations, with a more vivacious tone than his previous works. The episodic structure stems from it being a webseries edited into a feature-length format, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Ultimately, Holý has shot a summer comedy about female friendship while remaining restrained in pillorying the industry and avoiding hyperbole.