Late Night Talks with Mother

Late Night Talks with Mother is a stylised selfportrait of the Czech filmmaker Jan Nemec, inspired by Kafka’s Letter to Father. A fictional dialogue between Nemec and his dead mother forms the soundtrack to images of Prague, following the route of tram 11: from the statue of Wencelas in the centre to the Strasnic crematorium, where the son goes looking for the grave of his mother. He wasn’t there when she died. Just like Kakfa’s hero from The Trial, Nemec was charged without apparent reason and had to flee abroad, an event he still regrets greatly and for which he asks absolution, sitting on his mother’s grave.This autobiography filmed on miniDV (in the words of Nemec: ‘Digital, but with heart and soul’) is also a journey past milestones in the history of 20thcentury Prague, such as the Second World War, the Soviet invasion and the presidency of Václav Havel. Late Night Talks with Mother is however not a documentary: Nemec is played by the popular Czech actor Karel Roden, who can also be seen at this year’s festival in Parallel Worlds by Petr Václav. Almost all Nemec’s friends and acquaintances perform in the film, including some striking cameo roles, such as those by Václav Havel, Saul Zaentz and Eric Clapton.