"Czech cinema has a huge debt to LGBT themes," says director Roman Němec. His new film, Just So You Know, combines Grindr, parenthood and the clash of two incompatible worlds
A 12-year-old boy who needs to have his world perfectly ordered. A father who's still piecing his life together. And a weekend that turns from a routine visit into an experiment with unforeseen consequences. Roman Němec's new film , Just So, by the Way, plays out an intimate but distinctly contemporary story about parenthood, responsibility and the clash of two completely different worlds - the child's and the adult's.
The protagonist is David (Filip Kopta), an extremely intelligent and hyper-rational boy who has a hard time with chaos and needs to keep things under control. When he shows up unannounced at the home of his father (Ivan Lupták), who after years of living openly as a gay man and trying to make it as a musician, the question arises as to who is actually the more responsible person in their relationship. The situation is further complicated by the father's decision to entrust his son over the weekend to the care of a young man he met on Grindr (Vojtěch Franců). What might seem like a provocative plot turns into a sensitively constructed story about trust and the search for balance.
Roman Němec, originally a mathematics and physics teacher, came to filmmaking through advertising and documentary filmmaking. After his award-winning films About My Father and Where the Butterflies Don't Fly, he now comes up with a film that for the first time works more explicitly with a comedic position. In the interview, he talks about his journey from commercial projects to auteur work, the debt Czech cinema owes to LGBT stories and why films like this should not only target minority audiences, but especially the mainstream.
The gala premiere of Just So By the Way will take place on 21 March at 18:30 in the large hall of the Lucerna cinema in Prague.
Roman, I have read about you that you originally taught mathematics and physics, then you came to advertising, and only then did you move into feature films. In retrospect, was that an escape from one world, or was it more of a gradual search for what you were actually good at and what you wanted to do for a living?
I've always wanted to make films. When I finished high school, I didn't get into FAMU, so I went to study MatFyz. But the desire for audiovisual work never left me.
After the revolution, a lot of things changed here. New media were created, Czech Radio changed. I got an offer to work in a newly emerging agency that produced advertising and commercial commissions for Czech Radio. Gradually, this expanded to other radio stations that were starting to emerge at that time, and I moved from education to at least sound. Later on, I got into film projects. I had the opportunity to work with and learn from the best directors working in our country at that time. I learned as I went along and eventually stayed with filmmaking full time. Although I still do commercial projects today, it's now limited to the audiovisual field.
After all, filmmaking is different from commercial, advertising work. I guess advertising teaches you to condense your message and hit the point, whereas film needs time and a certain ambivalence. Are you inspired by the advertising experience? Is there something that you consciously bring to your films?
It's mainly working with the structure of the story. Advertising is, as you say, very condensed - if it's built on a story, it has to be very precise and dense. And of course that's useful to a certain extent in dramatic work.
The other thing that I'm often accused of is that I want things to be "pretty" even in dramatic films. Only if it serves the story, of course. Anything that doesn't contribute to the narrative bothers me. If there's a dirty door, for example, I don't mind if the dirt has no function in the story.I'm often accused of making up for these things in post-production so that they don't distract visually. But my goal is that nothing distracts the viewer from the message we want to convey. This is a strong habit from advertising in particular, where everything is stylized, idealized, but at the same time exactly subordinate to the message.
One of your first films from 2016, About My Father, opened up the festival world and the queer line to you. The film has been awarded at a number of international festivals. Why did you decide to make LGBT-themed films in the first place?
In 2016, we had a lot of commercial projects under our belt - not only commercial spots, but also various promo films and commissioned work where the dramatic component was already often predominant. But they were still commissioned, funded by someone else, and there was always someone "breathing down our necks".
Gradually, the need to make something of my own grew in me. At the same time, I had a long-standing feeling that Czech cinema owed a huge debt to LGBT issues. What was made here on this subject was really minimal. I don't want to go into the system of public funding of film, but at every opportunity I was confronted with arguments that there was no market for it and that nobody was interested in it.
So I decided to tackle the subject myself. I've made short films before that have gone down a different path, but since 2016, when we made About My Father, I've made a clear distinction in my writing towards LGBT issues.
Do you think things have changed in the last ten years and that queer themes are being made more today?
I don't feel like that debt has been paid. The situation has certainly improved, there's no doubt about that, but the question is the quality of the work. I often get the impression that when a queer character is written into a TV series in this country, it tends to be more of a caricature than a full-fledged, believable character.
It's such stereotyping.
Exactly. I still think there's room for more systematic and deeper work with this topic. Already in 2017 this was reflected in the interest of festivals, because there was a minimum of similar work from Central Europe at the big festivals. That's also why the film was perceived as a certain contribution.
On the other hand, the film won a lot of awards.
Yes, but it was the fact that it was so unique in our region that earned it attention. Of course, I was pleased because there were some very nice reviews. And for me as an author it has a lot of weight, especially when a review comes out, for example in a London magazine. Nobody knows me there, nobody knows the actors or the context of the local scene, so it's really just the film itself that's being reviewed. That has much more value to me than the various comments that come out here at home, where the market is small and a lot of other influences enter into the evaluation.
Going back to the arguments you mentioned - that there is supposedly no audience in the Czech Republic that is interested in such topics. Do you think there really is that target group?
I think it exists everywhere. I have always said that films with LGBT themes should not be made primarily for the LGBT community, but for the mainstream audience. That's the key.
How mainstream society shifts in relation to minorities in general is, I think, hugely related to pop culture. Neither schools nor political authority have as much influence on public opinion as movies, TV shows, music or celebrities.
That's why I think LGBT work should be targeted mainly at the mainstream, because that's who needs to be reached and influenced. But that's a question of the quality of the work. If a film or TV show comes across as unbelievable or stupid, it won't have any positive impact.
In 2022, you made Where Butterflies Don't Fly, which was already a feature film. What was it like for you to venture into a longer format?
It was hell. And not even because it was a feature film, but because it came at a time when it was a cover. We started filming on February 1st and a month later the pandemic hit. Nobody knew what it meant, what was next.
At first I didn't take it seriously, I thought that there were enough epidemics like this already and that it wouldn't affect us in any major way. Of course, that was a huge mistake. In the very first phase, we lost two sources of funding. One of the main partners had to close its store network and had completely different concerns. At the same time, we had pledged public money, which was suspended and reallocated to covid measures.
Into that came production complications - a lot of things stopped working. Most of the film, about eighty percent of the shooting, was done underground, which is challenging in itself, let alone at a time when basic services are not working. In addition, the main cave location - the Sloup-Shosh Caves - was hit by flooding a week before we were scheduled to start shooting, so we had to reschedule everything overnight.
Another complication was that actor Daniel Krejcik couldn't start on set because he was in quarantine. And unfortunately, the hell wasn't over even after production. The pandemic also hit the distribution - the distributor finally decided not to release the film in Czech cinemas because the attendance was practically zero. The cinemas worked, but people didn't go to them. Partly out of fear, partly because they got used to streaming platforms during lockdowns.
Paradoxically, the film was released earlier in cinemas in Germany and Austria than here. Abroad, the distribution went more or less as planned, while here, the film only really "arrived" at the TV screening. Everything was delayed by a year or two, but it all worked out in the end and I'm glad we all survived.
Thankfully, the pandemic is over. Your most recent film work is the film Just So. Can you tell us briefly what it's about?
It's a film that follows a similar format to About My Father. You could say it's a kind of film anecdote. It's also probably the first purely comedic thing I've ever done. I've avoided comedy for a long time because it's a difficult genre to write, and I was always told, "Just don't try any humor."
The inspiration for this script came from a 12-year-old Filip Kopta, who I discovered three years ago when I was casting a film we were commissioning at the time. Filip had never acted before, he was a complete blank slate, but I loved his immediacy and naturalness. Even then I thought I'd like to do something of my own with him one day.
Gradually, the subject of a story about a twelve-year-old hyper-rational boy grew out of that. The character was written right for Philip - he's very intelligent, he needs to have everything explained and understand the context. The story is about a boy who lives with his mother. His parents divorced when he was two because his father was outed as gay.
The boy occasionally goes to Prague to visit his father, and once he comes to visit him for a weekend, but his father doesn't count on him, he has other plans and wants to go away with the band. A problem arises about what to do with the kid, and the father solves it by talking a kid from Grindr into taking care of his son for the weekend.
As in my previous films, two completely incompatible people meet here. On the one hand, a hyper-rational, highly intelligent boy, on the other a young, uncommitted, broken-hearted heiress. It's the perfect breeding ground for comedy.
Through 12-year-old David, we follow a boy who feels the need to control the world because chaos causes him anxiety. Is this a metaphor for contemporary children for you, or did you project some personal experience into the character?
He's very different - especially in the way he thinks. That way of thinking isn't exactly common, but that's what's interesting about him. The kid has his own opinion on everything and a clearly formulated attitude. That makes it very interesting to see how he relates to his father, how his father lives after the divorce and how their worlds collide.
But I wouldn't want to claim that this is a direct metaphor or a specific personal experience. I was more interested in this kind of thinking as such.
The relationship between father and son is a key motif in the film. But the conflict is not primarily over orientation, but rather over differing expectations. Is it the intention that orientation is not the main conflict, or does it figure more prominently in the story?
I wouldn't like to talk about that too specifically because it would give away the plot. Of course, orientation plays an important role there - both in relation to the father and to the temporary caregiver.
But maybe it's good to mention the cast, because it was really exceptional this time. I am very happy with it. The father David is played by Ivan Lupták, whom I like a lot from the film My 2, where he played with Jakub Krejča. I made two more films with him. I always liked Ivan as an actor. This role suited him perfectly and the relationship in his scenes with the boy is very sensitively and precisely built.
As for the character of the guardian, which is essential to the film because he spends the most time with David, that was more difficult to cast. My original idea didn't quite work out, but I met Vojta Franca at the right moment. As soon as we started talking, it was clear that it was him. He understood exactly the character and the dynamics of the relationship with the boy. And he and Filip Kopta were an incredibly precise match, they work well together.
Where did the inspiration for this theme come from? Is it based on a specific story?
Not really this time. In previous films, autobiography was always present in some way, here much less so. It's more about things being stored in the subconscious and gradually connecting.
A basic idea emerges and then it's unpacked through context. In this case, the script came together very quickly, it was very spontaneous and organic. Ironically, the main inspiration was not the LGBT theme, but Filip Kopta himself - his character, his energy and the way he looks at the world.
If you had to entice the audience to come and see the film on 21 March, what would you do to convince them?
For one thing, March 21 is the perfect date, because it will be spring already. And this is the perfect date movie - it's short, so the "obligatory cultural part" is quickly over, leaving more time for more private activities.
