Swings | Host: Bohdan Sláma

Comedy, drama | 110 minutes
Screenplay: Bohdan Sláma, Lucie Konečná | Director: Bohdan Sláma | Cast: Zuzana Kronerová, Dagmar Havlová, Tereza Ramba, Jiří Rendl, Jiří Lábus and others.

Pre-premiere with director Bohdan Sláma in attendance. Tickets can be purchased individually or as part of a festival pass.

Two women, two different temperaments, and one chance meeting that could change how they see their own lives. Swings, Bohdan Sláma's new film inspired by Lucie Konečná's novel of the same name, tells the story of an unexpected friendship between two seventy-year-old women, Zdena and Jiřina. One is free-spirited, impulsive, and unconcerned with convention; the other appears more reserved and orderly. Yet as they gradually grow closer, both discover the possibility of breaking free from their established patterns and asking themselves anew what life still has to offer.

"Swings is about friendship. About two women meeting, each completely different from the other," says Bohdan Sláma. The story of female solidarity and emancipation addresses a theme that Czech cinema has rarely captured: how to live fully in later years and not let others' expectations dictate what is proper, improper, or supposedly too late to begin. Sláma returns to a mode close to his own work - a bittersweet narrative in which, alongside serious life situations, there remains room for humor, playfulness, closeness, and warmth.

He cast Dagmar Havlová and Zuzana Kronerová in the lead roles, their characters standing at opposite ends of the temperament spectrum. Kronerová herself describes the story as "bittersweet," while Havlová also contributed to the screenplay. Swings thus portrays old age not as a life in decline, but as a space where there is still room for friendship, rebellion, new beginnings, and the joy of living by one's own rules.