23/05/2025 - CANNES 2025: A Czech mother and her son with Down syndrome journey through Italy in Zuzana Kirchnerová’s road movie about fatigue, love and human connections

Czech director Zuzana Kirchnerová’s feature debut, which she co-wrote with Tomas Bojar, is a classic road-trip movie, mostly set in Calabria, a region in Southern Italy. The title of Caravan, screened in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, refers to the form of transport used by its main characters, Ester (Ana Geislerová) and David (David Vodstrcil), a stressed-out single mother and her 15-year-old son, who has Down syndrome. The pair will meet several characters along the way, including Zuza (Juliana Brutovska), a free-spirited girl with bright-pink hair who is also Czech and decides to join the duo on their Italian adventure.

Nothing is really explained about Ester’s past, apart from a very quick opening scene that sets the tone, and all we know is that her whole life revolves around taking care of her son, a task that has been draining her energy. She is also in need of romance, which she seems to find in an Italian man, Marco (Mario Russo).

Caravan, which marks the return of a Czech production to the Cannes official selection after more than 30 years, is a film that starts off as a story that clearly comes from the heart (Kirchnerová herself has a disabled son), but which falls into a lot of clichés and lacks real cohesion in some of its narrative choices. While technically impressive, the movie seems to waste a lot of opportunities to set up truly compelling situations or moments of real human connection among its characters, and unfortunately, many of its scenes feel repetitive, overly familiar or forgettable.

The road-movie structure proves to be the feature’s greatest flaw, confining the story to genre conventions where characters must pass through set encounters, meet a range of people and glean predictable lessons from their experiences. Way too many scenes feel stitched on to the story with no real outcome, and even the side characters, including Marco and even Zuza, at times, are written in very predictable ways. The feeling is that all of them have been created to fit the story, rather than having the story adapt to them. This imperfection makes the film feel artificially constructed and rather distant, as the only characters worth considering are Ester and David.

The sense of fatigue plaguing Ester is possibly the most authentically portrayed element of the film. It is not difficult to empathise with this woman, who clearly tries to do her best for her son but who also needs to let her own needs be fulfilled. If Caravan had only had the courage to have a bolder structure, a less stereotypical choice for a summer escape than Italy, and more refined writing for all of its characters, it wouldn’t have fallen just short of being a great road movie revolving around motherhood. Nevertheless, it still remains a work worth watching for people interested in moving stories with great cinematic execution.

Caravan was produced by MasterFilm (Czech Republic) and Nutprodukcia (Slovakia), while Alpha Violet is handling its international sales.