Anny, an occasional sex worker, filmed over the course of 18 years, from 1996 to 2012, in Třeštíková’s film of the same name.Anny, an occasional sex worker, filmed over the course of 18 years, from 1996 to 2012, in Třeštíková’s film of the same name.
Ploughing on when others would give up in frustration is what the 74-year-old does like few others. Longitudinal film-making is a perennial critics’ favourite. Richard Linklater won, tracking 14 British people for over 50 years, and German documentary The Children of Golzow, which followed people from the same Brandenburg village between 1961 and 2007, are usually held up as stand-out examples of the same genre.
Because Třeštíková pays attention for long enough, her films yield drama from what might otherwise appear to be the most ordinary of life stories. One of the six married couples in Marriage Stories, Ivana and Václav, initially seem like outliers. They are dynamic young architecture students who deal with the housing crisis by dividing up their tiny apartment in ingenious ways.