EUGENIC MINDS (2013)

WHAT EUGENIC MINDS IS ABOUT ...

I will leave the final decision to the viewer. At the beginning – five years ago – there was historian Michal Šimůnek's dissertation about mysterious scientific centers at Prague's university buildings during the time of the Protectorate. Right from the outset, I knew that I didn't want to shoot just one more film on recent discoveries about World War II, nor was my aim a popular history film with painstakingly selected archival material and interviews with wise and learned academics.

The subject promised an engaging exploration of the abuse of science to the utmost degree. It would be a film about self-destructive careerism that knows no mercy, even when at the cost of human lives. The source material and archival finds practically demanded a highly visual and artistic approach.

There is nothing more difficult than to present a historical document as a literary text, and – in today's era of reduced public financing – nothing more complicated than to create animation for a film of an unclear genre. All this came to be, but the result was five years in the making.

In artistic terms, we collaborated with renowned creators such as Jiří Barta and Jaroslav Róna, and the film's final look most influenced by Xenie Hoffmeisterová. Legions of animators contributed to the film; the outcome is thanks to the efforts of Honza Míka, who isn't really an animator but who bravely rose to the challenge. Hats off to him.

Additional footage was shot with Míra Janek behind the camera, and was edited by Tonička Janková. The music was arranged and recorded by Jaroslav Kořán.

Many thanks go to our advisors, who faced the filmmakers' creative ideas with royal patience... Marko Stella, Libuše and Dan Arnošt, and Michal Šimůnek did all they could to keep the filmmakers' passionate metaphors and allegories within the acceptable limits of their fields of research.

The dramaturges' hallowed patience was a source of support without which we could never have untangled this difficult-to-define genre into something straightforwardly legible. Many thanks to Kateřina Fričová, Jiří Pittermann, Hana Stibralová and Hanička Jemelíková.

It is difficult to explain why something with such an excellent sense of unity took so long, but we must realize that some things cannot be explained with words alone and that some aspects of humanity are nearly impossible to describe. Thanks go to Jirka Konečný for mastering his role as producer to the very end, despite all the ups and downs and financial hardships.

So what is eugenics as I have come to understand it?
At the beginning, it was an attempt at finding a way out of human suffering and degeneration. Then it was a crutch for ideologues that enabled all manner of horrors, of which mass murder is just a useful label to help us classify them. And in the end it was a forbidden concept in many distinguished disciplines that had been influenced by Galton's teachings. And yet it was a truly big discovery for me to realize that in some things the line between good and evil is blurred. Each of us is capable of a great spiritual renaissance, and within each of us slumbers the seed of self-destruction. For me, eugenics is proof that nothing is more dangerous to mankind than mankind itself ...

Pavel Štingl, 19 september 2013