7:00pm

Offsite
Czech Center Cinema
321 E 73rd St
New York, NY 10021

We’re delighted to join hands with the Czech Center and the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival to co-present an evening of cinema and conversation!

There are nearly twenty thousand species of lichens, they have been on Earth for hundreds of millions of years, and they play an indispensable role in many ecosystems. Yet they are usually overlooked. In Lichens are the Way, Ondřej Vavrečka decided to take a closer look at these fascinating organisms. His view, like the accompanying dialogue between experts Trevor Goward and Curtis Randall Björk, is both scientific and contemplative. For him, lichens represent not only a form but also a way of life. They show that an alternative to the constant expansion and reshaping of the environment can be the establishment of symbiotic communities in which every life has equal weight.

Shot on 16mm film, the project was shaped as much by limitation as by intuition. “The script didn’t stem from my personal will,” says Vavrečka, “but from the story that lichens compose according to the shapes of their bodies.”

We’re also thrilled to present Some Thoughts on the Common Toad by G. Anthony Svatek! Inspired by George Orwell’s 1946 essay of the same name, this film reflects on the quiet radicalism of loving nature amid political and ecological crisis. As today’s wars and environmental collapse echo Orwell’s time, the humble toad becomes a symbol of resilience—and remembrance.

Director, Ondřej Vavrečka and Producer Vít Janeček will be in attendance for a post screening conversation with UNDO’s Executive Artistic Director Christopher Allen! Come through!

Program

Lichens Are the Way (Lišejníky) by Ondřej Vavrečka

43 min., 2024, Czechia, Slovakia, In English with Czech subtitles

Some Thoughts on the Common Toad by G. Anthony Svatek

10:27, 2023, Experimental essay

Program Duration: 43 mins

Bios

Filmmaker, musician, artist and teacher Ondřej Vavrečka (1980) studied programming, philosophy, linguistics and FAMU. In addition to films such as The Interposed (2014), De Potentia Dei (2016) and Personal Life of a Hole (2020), he is also the author of paintings, sculptures, costumes and texts reflecting on the possibilities of the film medium.

Christopher Allen is a producer/director of documentary media projects and a programmer of multi-disciplinary events. After graduating from Columbia University, he co-founded UnionDocs and has been responsible for the organization’s growth from grassroots as the Executive Artistic Director. The collaborative projects he initiated — including Living Los Sures, Just to Get By, Documenting Mythologies, and Yellow Arrow — unite the creative efforts of hundreds of artists, documentary makers and communities. He directed the early interactive documentary Capitol of Punk, exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art. In 2014 and 2016, Brooklyn Magazine named him one of the most influential people in Brooklyn culture. Christopher has served on the juries of film festivals such as RIDM (Montreal) and Doc Lisboa, and on funding panels such as NYSCA and LEF. He collaborates on live media performance projects such as Say Something Bunny! with artist A.S.M. Kobayashi.