The Unwelcome

Director Tomáš Škrdlant describes his documentary as being "about living a good life with an unfortunate destiny - going back to live among people and returning to human life with all its imperfections." Incredibly, for 20 years, he followed the fate of his five protagonists, who were rejected by their parents after being born with serious disabilities. With the deliberate use of loosely interwoven portraits, we follow their journey from childhood in an institution to their coming of age and subsequent efforts to fully integrate into adult life. We watch them from the time they were locked up in institutions under communism, when they were strictly prohibited from having contact with "normal" society, up to the present day, when most of them have started their own families. Škrdlant's intimate and enormously sensitive documentary is definitely not a sad example of several unhappy destinies, but instead offers an uplifting confirmation of all the things that can be achieved by a handicapped person with a strong will. Last year, the film won the Pavel Koutecký Award for best Czech documentary.