Seablindness (Seablindness)

Tereza Smetanová

Ninety percent of everything we consume is shipped to us by boat. Seablindness explores the environment in which land meets the sea, the interstitial space of ports where capital is concentrated and distributed: endless depos, cranes, and gigantic ships. A patient observation however reveals a different perspective: a naked child learning to swim in the shade of a crane, wild birds grazing by the container towers, young people in kayaks blocking the dock for a brief moment. On a journey along the varied edges, we intercept a radio communication between a port official and an abandoned seafarer overcome by a strange sickness. The documentary poem explores ecological anxiety. It is not, however, about the people who feel it, but for them.

Slovakia 2025, '30

DIRECTOR: Tereza Smetanová

SCENARIO: Tereza Smetanová, Atila Urbančič

CAMERA: Lucia Kovaľová

MONTAGE: Petra Štefancová

MUSIC: Štefan Tomko, Antonín Laštúvka

PRODUCERS: Tereza Tokárová

PRODUCTION: Academy of Performing Arts - Film & TV Faculty, Bratislava, Cinepunkt

FESTIVALS & AWARDS:

DocLisboa IFF
Ji.hlava IDFF
Parallel Stories FF

Tereza Smetanová

Tereza Smetanová (1999) is a fresh graduate of the documentary filmmaking department at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. She also completed a year-long internship at FAMU in Prague. Since 2021, she has worked for the distribution company Film Expanded. Vale Tudo, her medium-length student film about a female MMA fighter, premiered at MFDF Ji.hlava 2023 and was featured in the international competition at Fris Hús Budapest Short Film Festival.
Her master's project Seablindness explores cargo ports in multiple European cities - a subject she develops further in her upcoming feature-length debut (Filmsomnia, Breathlessfilms). She is currently working on a docu-cycle for Slovak Public Television, produced by Peter Kerekes. She is a junior member of the FilmEU+ team and acts in a film named Nepela (Punkchart films). She is part of the Open Culture! Cultural Workers' Movement and a member of the Unkulunkulu performative collective.