Memory Burn

Thirteen-year-old boy, Přerov, has been zeroing in for years. An environment where everyone knows everyone, but closeness often means loneliness and anxiety rather than support. The absent father, the silence of the mother, the authority of the grandmother and grandfather. A germinating awareness that you are different in an environment that does not accept you. The small town as a collective organism, a force that shapes a person, and a source of trauma that fuels the desire to escape. Out of fear, you disappear into the big city, but the past does not leave you. Going back scares you. The death of your grandfather forces you to return to the places you wanted to leave behind forever. You don't have a choice. You might find that it's not a big deal, that you can just overcome the memories. Is it possible to escape the places that shaped you?

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Adaptation of Mark Torčík's Autofiction Novel Memory Burn awarded Magnesia Litera 2024 for prose, opens the theme of growing up against the backdrop of social inequalities, latent racism and homophobia. Memory is fragile and unreliable, but some moments remain forever squeaky. Director Ondřej Štefaňák and author Marek Torčík share a similar life story: they both grew up in small Moravian towns and both moved to Prague. The production is thus not just an intimate probe into a single memory, but an account of the search for identity, the courage to tell one's own story and the fear of returning to places that create and hurt a person.