On Monday 29 June 2015, acclaimed Polish writer Mariusz Szczygiel joined an audience at the Frontline Club to introduce the film Gottland and to discuss his book of the same name. Bloomberg News writer Doug Lytle joined the panel for a discussion on Szczygiel‘s ongoing interest in Czech culture.

The international bestseller Gottland: Mostly True Stories from Half of Czechoslovakia, published in English in late 2014, was awarded the European Book of the Year prize in 2009. The book attracted the attention of a group of young Czech filmmakers, who decided to use the text as a starting point for their collection of filmic interpretations.

“The film is inspired by my book, but it doesn’t illustrate it,” Szczygiel said. His remarks were relayed by Gottland translator Antonia Lloyd-Jones, who has also translated works writers including Ryszard Kapuscinski and Wojciech Jagielski.

Szczygiel explained to the Frontline Club audience his reasons for learning the Czech language. He wanted to tell the extraordinary life story of Czech singer Marta Kubišová but, as none of her family, friends and colleagues spoke English or Polish, he was unable to interview her. “So I did learn the Czech language for a particular singer,” he admitted.

Szczygiel elaborated on his views on the differences between Czech and Polish people with a number of personal stories. “I’ve got two posters at home,” he said. Both of them were designed to promote the 1965 Czech New Wave classic, Love of a Blonde by Miloš Forman. “The Czech one says [the film is] a comedy, the Polish one a psychological drama.”

Despite the many evident differences, the author concluded that the nations have more in common than one would expect. “Deep inside we’re exactly the same: sad, depressed. We have similar dramas inside. Except in one case it comes out as humour, to kill it a bit, and in the other version it comes out as melancholy,” Szczygiel said.

“I don’t speak about stereotypes; I give you facts,” Szczygiel remarked. He then went on to give an example of a feature of Czech identity that he has found to be largely true: “When a Czech man sits with his beer, it’s as if he was sitting in his own private church.”

Lytle concluded the discussion by asking about the second volume of Szczygiel‘s portrait of the country, Udělej si ráj (Make Your Own Paradise). The book has not yet been published in English, and explores, amongst other things, the regular occurrence of strictly religious Polish people living side-by-side with their atheist Czech neighbours, whose homeland is often described as the ‘most secular country in Europe.’

Click here for more information about Gottland: Mostly True Stories from Half of Czechoslovakia.

This screening will be preceded by a discussion with author Mariusz Szczygieł, translator Antonia Lloyd-Jones and chaired by Bloomberg News writer Doug Lytle.

The Frontline Club is delighted to partner with Czech Centre London, the Polish Institute and the 13th Kinoteka Polish Film Festival to bring you a screening of Gottland, directed by Viera Cákanyová, Petr Hátle, Rozálie Kohoutová, Lukás Kokes, Radovan Síbrt, and Klára Tasovská. Gottland is a cross-genre film based on selected parts of the international bestseller Gottland: Mostly True Stories from Half of Czechoslovakia (European Book of the Year 2009) by Mariusz Szczygieł.

After reading his book about their compatriots, a group of young Czech filmmakers approached the Polish author to ask for his thoughts and advice on a film project based on five of the true stories he tells. Szczygieł replied that for a filmmaker, the best author is a dead, or at least a silent one, and that he would prefer to leave them to interpret his stories in their own way. The result is a film in five very different parts, each episode a spin-off from Szczygieł’s originals, rather than a retelling.

This event combines the literary and the cinematic versions. The screening of the Czech film will be preceded by a discussion with Mariusz Szczygieł about the source of inspiration for his moving and at times shocking accounts of the life stories of: the film star who was Goebbels’ mistress; the despotic founder of a shoe-making empire; the sculptor who lost his life creating the world’s biggest monument to Stalin; the writer who reinvented himself for political survival; and the ‘human torch’ who copied Jan Palach’s fateful gesture as recently as 2003.

Born in 1966, Mariusz Szczygieł has been a reporter for Gazeta Wyborcza since 1990. He is the recipient of numerous awards for his writing on Poland and Czechoslovakia, including the Europe Book Prize and the Prix l’Amphi for Gottland. From 1995-2001, he hosted his own talk show (Na każdy temat – ‘On Any Topic’), and he runs the Polish Reportage Institute in Warsaw together with Wojciech Tochman and Paweł Goźliński.

Translator Antonia Lloyd-Jones is the pre-eminent translator of Polish reportage: the authors she has translated include Wojciech Tochman, Wojciech Jagielski, Jacek Hugo-Bader, and Ryszard Kapuscinski. She received the Found in Translation Award from the Polish Cultural Institute in 2008 for her translation of Pawell Huelle’s novel The Last Supper.

This event is organised by the Polish Cultural Institute in London as part of the 13th Kinoteka Polish Film Festival in partnership with Czech Centre London.

Gottland (FILM)
Directed by Lukáš Kokeš, Petr Hátle, Viera Čákanyová, Rozálie Kohoutová, Klára Tasovská, Radovan Síbrt
Duration: 100′
Year: 2014
Czech Republic/Poland/Slovakia

Gottland: Mostly True Stories from Half of Czechoslovakia (BOOK)
By Mariusz Szczygieł
Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Published by Melville House
Year: 2014