RECONSTRUCTION OF OCCUPATION

Jan Šikl has spent many years seeking out and collecting private film archives – faded footage of family lives, celluloid echoes of celebrations and everyday moments. It was in this way that Šikl eventually came across several hours of footage showing the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. These unique images long remained unseen – until 2021, when historical memory awakened from its long slumber. Reconstruction of Occupation is a cinematic adventure of a truly archaeological nature in which anonymous faces are transformed into living witnesses of the events that sent Czechoslovakia into two more decades of bondage.