Miracle

This student film by the award-winning Helena Třeštíková bears many of the hallmarks of her later work. Made as a graduation piece when she was at the FAMU Film and TV Academy in Prague, we see the director developing the distinctive observational style of filmmaking that she has used so effectively throughout her career. Over the course of several months, she follows a young pregnant woman as she becomes slowly acquainted with the joys and responsibilities of motherhood.

Given the subject matter, this documentary is a lot more uplifting than subsequent movies that depicted the lives of troubled individuals, such as the recidivist criminal René and the desperate drug addict Katka. Nonetheless, the young director’s unique eye for detail and characteristic rapport with her subjects are already in full view, and she handles the miraculous, poignant moments before and after childbirth with particular sensitivity.

In typical Třeštíková fashion, she was to revisit this family several times over the coming decades, and Miracle was later incorporated into the feature-length Private Universe, which won a special mention at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2012.