PETR RACEK
CONTACT
Hi. If you want to connect for a full feature cooperation, send me a message. I am always open for new relationships and new topics.
If you want to help with your project or want to create an audiovisual piece I am happy to read your ideas.
I am offering to colorgrade your project, especially in winter months. Send me an offer... and if you arrived to rent some gear, this is the right place to let me know.
Thank you for visiting my website.
Freedom is not a system.
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I am traveling cinematographer based in Prague in love with full feature documentary.
I am focused on social justice, interrupted connection with nature and human rights.
Currently looking for international cooperations.
PROJECTS
Scroll down for my full-feature work as DOP, coopertion with other artists and few of my director/experimental work.
*RENT GEAR
(78 min) Wolves returned back to Czech borderline forrests after 250 years after "eviction". We've spent 2 years in a village separated by different opinions about the new situation.
I choosed to use long focal lenghts to bring the iminent horizons closer to the people and wide lenses to capture faces and details surrounded by it.
dir. Martin Páv
Awards:
Won Best Documentary Cinematography 2021 for Excelent camera work. / Association of Czech Cinematographers (AČK) (IMAGO)
Won Festival international Jean Rouch at Paris 2020
Official Selection Visions Du Réel 2020
Won honorable mention at Jihlava Documentary Film Festival 2020
Won honorable mention at Cervino CineMountain 2021
Won Astra Film Festival 2021 Best Central and Eastern European Documentary
Won Mountains Film Festival Uzgorod 2021 Best documentary
Won honorable mention at Wildlife Film Festival Rotterdam 2021
https://www.csfd.cz/film/789868-vlci-na-hranicich/videa/
(90 min) Kibera Slums are a distatnt world for many, often used as a sexy topic for western audience.
We choose to spend there half a year during 2 years. Connecting 5 people who function as community leaders naturaly and through simple interest for their surroundings. Then the election happened.
It is our debut movie with the Director Martin Páv.
dir. Martin Páv
Awards:
Won Audience Award at MFDF Jihlava 2018
Official Competition at Al Jazeera Film Festival Sarajevo
International premiere at FIPADoc 2018
Won Special Award at One World Fim Festival Slovakia
Accepted at One World Fim Festival
Accepted at ELBEDOCK
Accepted at Sotambe Film Festival
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/244561637
(16 min) Resilience in between resignation and revolution. Is it possible to interpret philosophical ideas through dance? We decided to make a short film based on camera movement in spectacular location of Academy of Science in Prague. Cooperation with the philosopher Alice Koubová and the theatre performance of the Tantehorse ensemble directed by Miřenka Čechová and Markéta Vacovská.
dir. Vladimír Turner
Chosen for KVIFF2023 Imagina section
(25 min) The story takes you to Ústí nad Labem, where Lukáš Pulko, former Czech football representant is training a team of young roma footballers getting ready for their first match in Prague. He encounters difficulties with the city council because of his effort to repair local playgrounds.
In the film I focused on being very close to the subjects during their victories and losses but also bring the anxious and hard reality of the brownfiled enviroment to the picture.
dir. Jan Látal
Screened in 8 different European televisions, cooperation with EBU - Eurovision during Football World Cup 2022
Captivating group sound performance. Lies between our and a different world. When Ester asked me to shoot "behind" things and search for connections I took her bit too litteraly. I decided for a combination of shooting visible spectrum and infrared photography. This method required multiple tests with different cameras and infrared lights but let's me to show a world behind ours, let's me to see 1 mm under human skin also. The film uses the cuts between these two worlds as a narrative form.
dir. Ester Grohová
Getting ready for film festivals
(90 min) In 1939 Nazi party in Slovakia joined the country to Nazi Germany. Anti-fascists organized, went into woods and mountains and liberated the country. It took them 5 years and huge scars on peoples lifes and families remained till now.
Vera's family is one of them. With a little difference - they are Roma and Roma people are not considered as heros in Slovakia due to racism. Vera bravely with no prepositions goes and brings the puzzles of the story together.
I found standing in my own way by not being Roma while shooting this movie. So I let all the mixtures of intensive contradictory ideas blend together and create colorfull palete of poem, personal story and historical documentary aesthetic in one movie. Connected by one red dress
dir. Vera Lacková
Awards:
World premiere: GoEast Film Festival 2021: Main competition
Won Heimatfilmfestival 2022: Best documentary film
The Czech Association of directors, screenwriters and dramaturgists (ARAS) honorable mention
Won Ake Dikhea? Festival of Romani Film in Berliin
Pavel Koutecký Award honorable mention
(6 x 2 min) Six short videos for a campaign Jsem jako ty (Just like you) focused on highschoolers and social networks. Presents 6 young foreigners living in Czech Republic wittily showing the stereotypes they have to deal with on a daily basis.
I choose to picture these characters very closed in their enviroments, almost like in a box, when explaining the stereotypes and in opposion free in open space when being honest about themselves.
dir. Martin Páv
Baďa https://youtu.be/yb-b4Bs0d18
David https://youtu.be/bD7_dc4ZIis
Olesya https://youtu.be/_MbLazolvyc
Voxpot - Annexation of the West Bank
(21 min) In depth short doc for Voxpot media, editorial office strongly focused on international journalism. In 2014 we spent 2 weeks on both sides of the checkpoints trying to understand the conflict, always on the go, often in unpleasant conditions. With the Israel-Palstine war in 2023 the topic just gets more alive.
dir. Tereza Langová
History of the Third World War
(52min) This bold movie title was born for the occasion of 60 years after the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) which almost started a 3rd World War. We found three veterans from those times and followed them with camera while they should accomplish their missions one more time.
It was a bit difficult project mainly because we needed to fit the camera gear into a battle tank and army helicopter. I went with the film emulation styled picture for the reconstruction scenes and more civil look for interviews.
dir. Richard Komárek
Produced for the Czech Television
Voxpot - The Wind, Sun and Revolution
(41 min) According to their representatives, a complete transition to renewable energy and a carbon-free economy by 2050 is a challenge for the European Union similar to the US' efforts to put a man on the moon half a century ago.
We traveled to extraordinary Moroccan solar powerplants, to Hamburg to film the huge AC/DC converter between Norway and Germany and other places around Europe to find out if the transformation is really possible.
dir. Vojtěch Boháč
Awards:
Won Respekt weekly and Ji.hlava IDFF prize for the best television, video and online story of the year
(18 min) Film Modern Times (based on Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 film of the same name) presents „hooverboard etudes“ and focuses on the alienation caused by technological progress. „Modern times have changed dramatically since Charlie Chaplin. Today, given his soulful reflection on the world, Chaplin would probably be dependent on Xanax,” says Turner.
dir. Vladimír Turner
Kde jsou lvi? / Ubi sunt leones? art exhibiton at MeetFactory Gallery
(5min 2020) "I can't believe I'm introducing you to my first music video. Something I never thought would happen. But it's here. And it's gay and there's no excuse for it - so I hope you live for it as much as I do!" says Miss Petty aka David Daniel, now already widely known musician and performer. It was a pleasure to shoot his first music video with almost zero budget, very limited gear and to have a chance to help the queer culture in our country. Slay!
dir. Janáček, Saleh
In the making project about breathtaking nature of watter in all of its forms. Wonderful cooperation with Gabriela Procházka.
(55min) "The Czechs Are Excellent Mushroom Pickers" is the name of poem written by Milan Kozelka. It is a full feature film poem ilustrating the relationship between Czechs and Czech nature at the dawn of climate collapse.
To visit all the places of nature devasation in a few weeks while filming it was very emotionally draining for the whole crew but since it was never before put into just one movie it needed to be done. I was mainly inspired by well know movie "Anthropocene: The Human Epoch".
dir. Apolena Rychlíková
Produced for Český žurnál S06E04
(2min) Short sucessfull Kickstarter campaign spot I directed and shot made myself for a new community and sound meditation venue in Prague. It is about having a space to think and to feel.
Sound design: Stanislav Abrahám
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/531721231