Kawasaki's Rose

Renowned psychiatrist Pavel Josek is singled out to receive a "Memory of the Nation” medal but it transpires that this reputedly morally irreproachable dissident once collaborated with state security agencies, informing on his wife’s former boyfriend. Josek’s family and close friends try to come to terms with these new facts – each in his own way, with differing opinions, feelings and memories, none of which necessarily reflects the truth. But which truth is at stake here? Director Jan Hřebejk and screenwriter Petr Jarchovský have examined socially oppressive themes before. However, in a story about guilt, punishment, forgiveness and remorse, they have moved away from comic hyperbole in order to try their hand at psychological drama. The film, whose title was inspired by the name given to what is supposedly the most difficult origami model (its complexity reflecting the relationships between the main protagonists), won Czech Lions for the actors in the supporting roles, Ladislav Chudík and Daniela Kolářová. The film opened the Panorama section at Berlinale.