Searching for a place to live with One World

At the One World festival, urgent and pressing global issues are often addressed. Yet we should not forget how many people are simply asking a more basic question: how can one live a normal life? The Sleepless City, by Spanish director Guillermo Galo, visits an illegal Roma settlement near Madrid, where a vibrant community has built its home over many years. Now it faces destruction, as city authorities are preparing to level the area. The film is guided by a boy named Toni, who is still able to live in a world of colourful fantasies that the filmmakers attempt to bring to the screen. At the same time, however, they do not shy away from the harsher realities. With empathy, the film explores what “home” means to different generations, follows the transition from childhood to adulthood, and seeks beauty in every moment.

The need for a place to live is undeniable, and few people understand the paralysing absence of a home more clearly than those who have already lost one. The Czech documentary Homeless Blues, by filmmaker Libuše Rudinská, is the result of her year-long observation of people who have ended up without a proverbial roof over their heads. In an orchard area, however, the city has provided them with a residential unit and, with it, a chance to return to the system. The modest film avoids didactic lectures; instead, it sensitively observes events and gives space to the participants themselves, many of whom found themselves in an unsolvable situation as a result of a few seemingly trivial mistakes. The screening will be attended by the director and the mayor of Prague 9, Tomáš Portík, and will be moderated by Nora Fridrichová.

However, a person may have a place to sleep and still not feel entirely at home. The protagonist of the documentary Welded Together is twenty-two-year-old Belarusian Kaťa, the only woman working in a masculine factory with a welding torch in her hand. In this seemingly ill-fitting environment, she ultimately feels more comfortable than when she has to return home and witness her mother’s inability to care for her other daughter. The resulting social drama asks whether it is possible to escape one’s fate.