The Joke + ALGO-RHYTHM【The 13th Hong Kong Independent Film Festival】Hong Kong Independent Film Festival

🔻 The Joke
Director：Jaromil Jireš
Czech |1969 | 81 min | B&W
In Czech with English subtitles

Who could have imagined a little quip has the power to destroy a man’s life? Shot during the Prague Spring, the film is an adaptation of Milan Kundera’s novel of the same name. Set in 1950s Czechoslovakia during the Communist regime, university student Ludvík writes a joke for his lover, who reports him to the Communist party. When Ludvík returns to Prague fifteen years later, he vows to avenge those who have wronged him. Director Jaromil Jireš uses precise cross-cuts of the protagonist’s harrowing past and his present-day revisit, illustrating how the hypocritical “democracy” built with a phony façade has allowed a malevolent moment that causes lifelong trauma. Perhaps the meticulously calculated revenge plot has been reduced to a new joke. This is as ironic as the post-revolutionary generation’s abandonment of Stalin's communism for their pursuit of a petty bourgeois lifestyle.

Goethe Institut Presents
Oberhausen International Short Film Festival’s Selection

🔻 ALGO-RHYTHM
Director：Manu Luksch
Germany | 2019 | 14 min | Colour
In French and Wolof with English subtitles

ALGO-RHYTHM combines elements of hip hop music and graffiti to comment on the threat of big data in lively pace. Humanity is breaking apart in the digital age, becoming one digit after another within the algorithm.