This raw authentic documentary film tells the story of Rene whose life was being captured on camera since he was seventeen. The camera followed his hopeless journey between prison and brief periods outside the prison walls. In 2008 the film comes to end, leaving now 37-year-old Rene as a sick man who still gets in trouble with law and who is also the author of two published books. The life of Rene, who successfully stylizes himself in desperado’s role, unfolds against a backdrop of important political events occurring in the Czech Republic and beyond its borders. The Velvet Revolution, the presidential election, 9/11 and the Czech Republic’s accession to the EU – all this is “digested” by Rene mostly from the confines of various prisons. Rene displays his outlook on life by flashing his “Fuck of People” tattoo on his neck.
Helena Trestikova graduated from the Department of Documentary Film at FAMU, Prague. Since 1974 she worked as a professional documentary filmmaker, and made near fifty documentary films of various lengths and formats, mostly about human relationships and various social issues. Later, she specialized on so called time-lapse documentaries – long term observation of people’s destiny. Since winter 2002 she is a professor at FAMU, Documentary department.
It Wasn’t in Vain (2006), Events of Pavel Stecha (2006), Untellable (2007), Marcela (2007), Rene (2008)
