Petr Marek

Petr Marek started making films in the late 1980s under the aegis of UNARFILM. Most of his short films (numbering around thirty in total, the shortest with a running time of 9 seconds) and his seven features (the longest of these being 4 hours long) are collaborations with Jiří J. K. Nebeský. Their cinematic style is most strikingly visible in the “montage psycho-analytical detective story” Bajesta Gumbrina (1994) and the "metaphorical slapstick on the loss of and search for faith" Film Petra (Peter’s Film,1996).

Among his acclaimed films is the 8-mm Všechno na Mars! (All to Mars!, 1997). His film Dříve, Než.... (1997) forms part of the National Film Archive’s anthology “Czech Experimental Cinema.” In 1997, together with Vít Janeček, Petr Marek made a documentary film about the Karlovy Vary film festival for Czech Television, entitled V centru filmu (v teple domova) / In the Hub of Cinema (The Bliss of Domesticity). In 2001 he was second cameraman on Jan Němec´s film Noční hovory s matkou (Late Night Talks with Mother) as well as appearing as an actor and musician in Jan Gogola jr’s film Národ sobě (Nation to Itself).

One year later he made his own debut feature film Láska shora (Love from Above), co-produced by NEGATIV s. r. o. and UNARFILM, a film striking for its unique poetics. Three years later he presented his second feature Nebýt dnešní (Not of Today, 2005), combining themes of overcoming drug addiction with elements of sci-fi. His third film Nothing Against Nothing (2011) once more juggles some of the features which are typical the generation of people now in their thirties. Issues of relationships, and of the conflict between individual and socialization, are viewed by Peter Marek with a degree of peculiar detachment and clever wit. Acutely observed current social phenomena are placed within the self-confessed context of genre and stylization which lend his films their specific signature style.

As a member of the group MIDI LIDI, Petr Marek created music for Marek Najbrt’s films Mistři (Champions, 2004) and Protektor (Protector, which won the 2009 Czech Lion award for best music), as well as for Vít Klusák’s and Filip Remunda‘s Český Mír (Czech Peace), and Jan Němec’s Heart Beat 3d. He is also a theatrical actor and member of several theatre ensembles (Studio Ypsilon, VOSTO5, Radio Ivo, Dekadentní divadlo Beruška, LÁHOR/Soundsystem). He participated in the Czech Television Saturday night program Hotel Insomnia. He has worked as a film programmer at the Prague club Roxy, and currently teaches at the FAMU Department of Directing.

In 1999 Petr Marek graduated from the Department of Film Studies at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague, with a diploma work entitled The Mechanics of Memory of the Film Medium (and Memory in Film) / Mechanika paměti filmového média (a paměť ve filmu). His theoretical and critical essays have been published in periodicals including Film a doba, Cinepur, Iluminace, Kino/Ikon, Lidové noviny, Tamto, Týden, and Instinkt.

Presskit for movie NOTHING AGAINST NOTHING