Em and He is 85 minutes-long film about two friends from Litvínov, a town in the north of the Czech Republic. Both the Ukrainian poet EM Rudenko and the musician Xavier Baumaxa are 36 years old. The first one is unemployed. Now and then he disposes dangerous waste in a chemical plant or he illegally tugs cables in mud. He just performs jobs no one wants to do. He doesn’t strike. He doesn’t complain. The other one wanders around the country with guitar. He is a qualified teacher. They are interconnected through friendship and great talent which only slowly bubbles through to public. Rudenko develops the tradition of short, over-poetic and even absurdly narrated mini stories. Perhaps unintentionally and with no direct implication he follows the tradition of Ivo Vosdseďálek, Egon Bondy and others. Baumaxa creates something completely original. It doesn’t resemble anything. It is intelligent, cruel and I believe many people may have hard time listening to it. An observant person, however, easily recognizes the author’s sensitiveness (same for Rudenko) who avoids mere puddling of words into smoochy, soulless, pathetic ding-dong or fancy rhymes. He imitates superbly, his text is based on puns and erudite knowledge of foreign languages. I spent two years filming those two guys, environed by the Czech north and the “decadence” of its towns. Everything came up organically, as if you write a poem or paint a picture. Alone with camcorder, no exterior pressure, no censorship. The same applies for the postproduction. Most of the production team managed to take part in shaping the whole film. There was a deep cohesion of the filmmakers with the main characters. Inspiration was mutual. One can even think of the trivial, yet truthful – everything is related.
DAFilms.com is powered by Doc Alliance, a creative partnership of 7 key European documentary film festivals. Our aim is to advance the documentary genre, support its diversity and promote quality creative documentary films.
Please choose one of following payment gates you'd like to pay through:
or subscribe to our online cinema
and watch over 2000 films in your browser:
By clicking this button, you declare that you are over the age of 18 and confirm both your consent to the DAFilms Terms and Conditions and that you have familiarised yourself with the [Principles of Personal Data Processing]. By making a payment, you are also requesting that the selected content be provided to you immediately upon confirmation of your order.
