‘Paper Heads – Dušan Hanák’

In the presence of the Director

An emotional film in the form of an essay about the relationship between an individual and power, within the context of a totalitarian regime. Through a patchwork of archive images, accounts and staged performances, Paper Heads denounces the violations of human rights in Czechoslovakia, but first and foremost it is an exceptional reflection on the freedom and oppression of human beings.

Dušan Hanák
Film Director and Screenwriter Dušan Hanák studied film directing at the FAMU Film School in Prague. He made 20 short documentaries which have been screened all over the world and received many awards. After spending 17 years on the shelf, Pictures of the Old World, his first feature-length documentary, was screened with much success worldwide. Paper Heads is his second feature documentary. Since 1992, Hanak has been teaching at the Film and Television Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. In 2004, he was presented with the Pribina Cross First Class “for his extraordinary contribution to the cultural development of the Slovak Republic”. At the Bergamo 2006 IFF, he was presented with an Award to the Career and in 2008 the Karlovy Vary IFF awarded him with a Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema.