HONEYMOON

A bride's perfect day turns sour when an uninvited guest crashes the party bearing an unusual gift.

Veteran filmmaker Jan Hrebejk won the Best Director prize at Karlovy Vary Film Festival for this nuanced character drama, the third in a loose trilogy that began with Kawasaki's Rose (MIFF 2010) and continued with Innocence. Written by Hrebejk's frequent collaborator Petr Jarchovsky (screenwriter of the Oscar-nominated Divided We Fall) and featuring his regular, the superb Ana Geisterová, Honeymoon initially takes the familiar airy route of wedding stories then veers into darker territory with the arrival of a slightly creepy school friend of the handsome groom.

Set over two days at an idyllic country house in South Bohemia, what was to have been a joyous celebration ends up as a tense revelation of guilt and forgiveness between the newlyweds.

"Gradually weaves some welcoming darkness into the frothy and cheerful façade, concocting a film that is both beautiful and memorable … (an) elegantly intimate drama." – Screen