Vít Soukup - Return From Space

AUTHORSHIP

Equal co-authorship: Vít Soukup

CLASSIFICATION

Classification: film/videoart

DATES

Date of creation: 2000

SUBJECT

Other persons appearing in the film: Jan Materna, David Kalika, Adam Hlaváč, Martin Šefránek, Vít Soukup

COLLABORATORS AND PARTICIPANTS

Other collaborators: Jan Zajíček

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

Duration: 00:07:52
Sound: Sound

EXHIBITIONS, PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS

Compilation containing the work: Vít Soukup: Everything!, 2012
Attachment included with work’s publication: booklet CZ/EN

NOTES AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Notes: Included in the compilation Vít Soukup: Everything! Films and Theater Performances 1993–2003 (edited by T. Nekvindová, S. Sobotovičová) - published in 2012 by the Research Centre of Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (VVP AVU) in cooperation with Divus.

Written by: Jan Materna, Vít Soukup, David Kalika, Jan Zajíček
Costumes and sets: Šárka Havlíčková, Roman Kárník
Camera, music, editing and singing: Jan Zajíček
Directed by: Vít Soukup

Adopted text on the work: A quasi-sentimental story about man’s need for a foundation. Even seasoned space explorers are just people, and they struggle with the same issues as anyone else: their relationships with their loves ones, homesickness, and childhood memories. We should not underestimate one important detail: the name of one of the astronauts, the main protagonist Duchamp, refers to an artist about whom Vít Soukup wrote in his critical essays. We are brought back down to earth (with a lowercase as well as uppercase e) through the figure of an old woman with her keys, who we will meet again.

Return from Space was Soukup’s first film to be produced digitally under the aegis of Divus publishing’s TeleDVision; it and the subsequent three films form his so-called tetralogy. In terms of style, it is closely related to Nailing the Sun to the Sky, which features several of the same characters, expands on some of the dialogues, and works with elaborate costumes and inserted stories. Unlike the other films in the tetralogy, it does not feature the motif of death, but it does share the theme of returning home with Red Yard (2001). The name may refer to the 1984 Soviet film with the same name about a “crucial test of friendship, valor, and bravery”.
Source of text: Edice VIDA 3, VVP AVU, 2012
Author of text: Terezie Nekvindová, Sláva Sobotovičová
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INFORMATION IN PARTNER DATABASES

Artlist #1: Record at Artlist