For four years director Marie Dvořáková has followed Marie Tomanova, the Czech-born darling of the New York photography scene, and her partner (both in life and work) Thomas Beachdel, an academic and curator. Her documentary project So Far from Mikulov will be pitched August 15 during the Docu Talents from the East presentation at Sarajevo.
The synopsis reads how the project chronicles “their passion and obsession for art, their fearlessness to make their vision a reality, and the boundless effort that requires. The film is a testimony to the moments that shape young artists’ careers, with all the uncertainties they must overcome to make their dreams come true.”
Dvořáková started work on her documentary in 2018 before Tomanova grabbed the attention of public and critics alike with her photographic depictions of New York youth, especially across the party scene. “I decided that I would film a super short film about her when she was making her first solo show in New York,” explains the director. “But then obviously things changed and I found myself four years later still filming her. Because I realized that she was such a fascinating character. She has a great enthusiasm, great energy.”
“Back then I could already feel that she had a huge talent honestly, but she had also all the other things that you need in order to succeed. And she was absolutely lovely. And I wanted to follow her path and I was lucky enough that I caught her in a moment where she wasn’t yet that famous and established on the New York photographic scene,” Dvořáková adds. “I was using the observational method. I gained her trust and they gave me full access basically to their lives. I could follow them pretty much anywhere.”
In the film, Tomanova’s partner Thomas Beachdel has equal billing (although it took him longer to come around to the idea of 24-hour observation by Dvořáková). “I was an intruder in their house, obviously, but slowly he got used to me… He’s also a really fascinating, smart character. He has a lot of deep insight into the arts.”
In the beginning the project was put together on a shoestring budget, if that. “When I started filming I didn’t have any budget or anything. I did it on top of my other stuff that I was doing. So in my free time, you know, on the weekends, I borrowed [a camera] from my friends, or sometimes very often I took one of Marie’s cameras,” Dvořáková admits.
“Then later on, when I saw that there’s actually a potential feature film I reached out to a few production houses and I was lucky enough that Evolution Films and Pavel Berčík came on board,” the director continues. Support from the Czech Film Fund and Slovak Audiovisual Fund followed. The project attracted a co-producer in Slovakia (PubRes) and then, in 2020, HBO Europe came on board as a co-producer, to the delight of Dvořáková.
Right now the director is fine-tuning the rough cut with a view to a January 2023 delivery. Together with fellow producerBerčík she will be seeking a sales company and a further European co-producer during Sarajevo, as well as a composer to design a musical score for the film.
A boon for the Dvořáková is that her subject Tomanova has granted access to a large archive of photographs for use in the film. “I think that my movie, the way we are editing it, it’s gonna appeal more to today’s generation, like young, young generation of people like the people that Marie takes pictures of,” says the director.
Right now the trailer is a fantastic blitz of images, but the final film will be more balanced, she maintains. “We will have moments that will be dynamic and fast, like in the trailer. But those moments will interchange with more subtle moments, where we will explore the relationship between Thomas and Marie and their motivations, their discussions about art. The big part of the movie is their passion and also their struggle. Because it’s not easy to succeed in New York – and it’s not even easy to live in New York.”
Docu Talents from the East is curated and organised by the Ji.hlava IDFF. See: https://www.ji-hlava.com/docu-talents
