Helena Třeštíková, a Czech documentary filmmaker workshop entitled "TimeLaps Documentary" was held in the 15th edition of the Iran International Documentary Film Festival also known as “Cinema Verite" which is currently underway in Tehran.
"Filmmaking means solving ongoing challenges and aims to record different times, themes and portray a variety of life strategies," Třeštíková said.
“Filmmaking is an attempt to give an interesting form to the stories and record the events at a specific time and to motivate the audience to think about the shapes of the time and to screen the film with the subject of people who are not usually discussed and to deal with them, a member of the European Film Academy, and briefly Minister of Culture of the Czech Republic added.
"To make a film, I randomly selected my subjects from among the people who went to the registry office. This issue was very well received by the audience, so that twenty years later I made another documentary about the heroes of the previous work, and after the same work was welcomed, I decided to continue with the heroes of the story and the story of their lives. I narrated it 35 years later.”
"After this, I decided to make a film about young delinquents, and my question was how these people continue to live," Trstinkova said. “That's why I started searching and I was determined to score this work with all the available uncertainties. Finally I portrayed a young man who was very open-minded and I decided to make a film about him.”
"The important thing is that we can never expect all our demands to be met from a documentary," she said.
“There is also a type of documentation called a time-lapse documentary, the main point of which is the durability of the camera on a specific and unique subject. This is why it is necessary to establish a close relationship with the subject,” she said.
Třeštíková has made more than fifty documentaries on various subjects, mainly on human relations and various social problems. She specializes in time-lapse documentaries and follows the characters' lives for a long time. The first series of her time-lapse films follows the daily lives of several young married couples from the moment they get married for six years.
Now, after 35 years, this documentary still follows those characters. The IDFA Festival honored Ms. Třeštíková in 2018 for her valuable artistic achievement over the years as a documentary filmmaker and was a Guest of Honor at the festival.
Opened in Tehran on Dec 9, the festival is slated to be wrapped up on Dec 16, 2021.
The Documentary and Experimental Film Centre (DEFC) organizes the annual Iran International Documentary Film Festival.
The festival has several sections including National, International, Martyr Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani Award, Martyr Avini Prize, Special Screenings, Portrait, Mirror of a festival, Focus on a country, Panorama, Workshop, and Doc Market.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the major Iranian international festival for documentary films are being held with a limited number of guests and audience at Tehran’s Charsu Cineplex.