What makes a Czech film appear, and be, unmistakably “Czech”? That question is at the very centre of Marek Novák’s and Mikuláš Novotný’s documentary The Czech Film Project, which has just premiered at the 59th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, in the Special Screenings sidebar. This should not come as a surprise, since it was co-produced by KVIFF Events and was entirely filmed during the previous year’s edition of the largest film gathering in the Czech Republic.

The rules of the game are simple here. There is a room on one of the upper floors of the famous Thermal Hotel, which also serves as the festival centre. In this room, there’s a small table, a couple of armchairs, a plant, a lamp and a big window overlooking Karlovy Vary’s city centre. The weather outside and the guest, or the interviewee, in the room are the only things that change during the whole duration of the documentary. The camera remains in a fixed position, pointed in the same direction, shooting every subject and their answers to a survey about Czech cinema for roughly the same amount of time: each of the 30 or so interviewees hailing from the ranks of Czech or Czech-based filmmakers gets two-and-a-half to three minutes to state their observations and remarks.

Some of them check whether the camera is on properly. Some try to answer the question in a serious tone, while others keep the mood jovial and humorous, or even try to put on a show. For instance, Jan Vejnar appears with a crying baby in his arms, Petr Jákl sports a “last action hero” attitude, and Beata Parkanová sings her opinions. Cristina Groşan is the only one who provides a proper outsider’s insight, repeating the answers she usually gives to her Romanian friends when she gets asked about living and working in the Czech Republic.

The “consensus” is that the “proper” Czech or, rather, Czechoslovak films were made in the 1960s, like those of Ivan Passer, Jaroslav Papoušek and Miloš Forman, with The Firemen’s Ball (1968), which combined the efforts of all three of them, at the centre of the Czech film pantheon. Regarding modern cinema, some attribute the problem to the concept of “village cinema” (ie, movies with the plot set in a village milieu), some to humour being used to water down the drama, and others to the tendency to hold on to the so-called “Švejk” stereotype when picturing the Czech mentality. Some find the position between the West and the East both a blessing and a curse. Most of the interviewees agree that the lack of originality and the attempts to make carbon copies of the role models coming from different sources, be it Hollywood or the Romanian New Wave, make contemporary Czech films lack authenticity.

Heck, even the idea for this survey-type documentary is not actually original: Wim Wenders did a similar thing at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival when he brought the available filmmakers to his hotel room and asked them about the future of cinema, which resulted in Room 666 (1982). Novák and Novotný do not conceal the fact that they were inspired by Wenders’ effort, which is fair, and they don’t explain how they chose their interviewees, which is also legitimate.

However, it seems that The Czech Film Project is a type of a documentary that feels best suited for internal use by Czech film institutions and the country’s film scene, as its topic may fail to engage wider audiences. But its simple concept could also be repeated, copied and applied to other environments.

The Czech Film Project is a Czech production by Xova Film and Background Films in co-production with KVIFF Events, Magic Lab and Studio BEEP.