Pavla Baštanová

This Czech film full of northern melancholy depicts the flow of time somewhere on an island where a man constantly fights with nature and with himself. Jumping off a cliff, facing attacks of a predator and encountering seals are just ordinary things here. In a land where the wind blows constantly, a man cannot afford to be baffled by anything.

The short animated film I Can’t Swim is this year’s Academy of Arts Architecture & Design in Prague competition entry. The author explores the schizophrenic feelings of a man with a mental disorder. She uses a metaphor of a castaway on an abandoned island. The fantasy of a sick brain knows no boundaries - it consumes the schizophrenic and he is not able to distinguish his fantasies from the real world anymore. And yet the reality is so prosaic.