Recharging batteries

"Above all, don't make Czech comedy films,"Laurent Jacob, the initiator and head of the Cannes student section Cinéfondation, told Zuzana Špidlová. The 30-year-old woman has just triumphed over some of the best student films in the world at the most prestigious of festivals. Her Bába really does not even a bit of the kindness and warmth typical of many Czech films, and what Jacob, the respected "father" of the student competition was hinting at.

It's not without cause that Špidlová is looking for inspiration from foreign directors. In Cannes, she got to meet her idols, the Dardenn brothers. And Bába has a lot in common with these Belgian sociocritical moralists from the periphery, because it addresses a serious social topic: care for chronically ill people. Through the main character's ethically dubious behaviour, Špidlová asks viewers what would they do in a difficult situation. The raw story of an immature granddaughter, who is not mentally capable of taking care for her infirm grandma, was described in France as "intensive" and "mature". 



After all, Špidlová, in her fourth year of studies at the film academy FAMU, isn't any fussy teenage student. She started to study directing when she was 26. She was finishing her law studies at the same time, but never dreamt of a career as a…