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Toyen, Jan Nemec (Czech Republic, 2005)

Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Neighbor

A key figure in the Czech Surrealist movement, the painter Toyen lived a life as memorable as her work: shunning typical gender roles and taking a gender-neutral name and “way of life,” she experienced both Paris at the height of the Surrealist movement, and Prague under Nazi occupation. Nemec’s portrait merges fictional reenactments with stock footage and images from her paintings, matching the artist’s hallucinatory visions with the director’s own creations and free associations. A love letter from one outsider to another, Toyen is a fittingly fragmented, dream-like tribute to a sadly little-known Surrealist legend. 

—Jason Sanders

• Written by Nemec, Tereza Brdecková. Photographed by Jiri Maxa. With Zuzana Stivínová, Jan Budar, Tobiás Jirous. (73 mins, In Czech with English subtitles, Color, 35mm)

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