Film about politicians shot by mentally disabled people wins top documentary prize

The Pavel Koutecký Award for best Czech documentary went this year to the film Earthlings, Who Are You Voting For? The movie shows, among other things, what happens when a group of mentally handicapped people come up to politicians in the middle of an election campaign and ask them questions they might not be ready for. Directed by an experienced filmmaker Linda Jablonská, parts of the movie were in fact shot by her students at a workshop run by Inventura, a Prague based NGO that supports people with learning disabilities. RP spoke to the film’s director, Linda Jablonská.

'Earthlings, Who Are You Voting For?'

“This organization works with people with handicap or with learning disabilities, and I was working there as a lecturer at their documentary workshop with them. So we decided we were going to make a film, and the film is about pre-election meetings and the [2010 general] election itself.

“My students and I were driving around the Czech Republic, visiting election rallies. They were asking politicians and also the voters about all kinds of things.”

How did the politicians and supporters react?

“Well, the advantage of my students was that their question was quite unpredictable, and so were sometimes the politicians’ reactions. But it varied. I’d say that some politicians did not even notice something was a little different, others treated them like children.”

Linda Jablonská (in the center), photo: CTK

Why did you choose politicians? This another of your politically-themed films – do you think politicians are different in their approach to mentally disable people?

“It wasn’t planned. We were looking for a topic for our documentary, and the elections were happening at the time, it was everywhere, so we thought, ‘this is easy, that’s what we’re going to do’. And the fact that I went to the same meetings four years before when I was shooting Left, Right, Forward! about young communists and young conservatives – that’s something I don’t understand, it’s not something I would think about that I want to make political films.”

What did your students learn during the making of the film? What was their take on the whole experience?

Photo: CTK

“I think it made them quite happy. We still continue in the documentary workshop so I think they’re happy that they can go on working with cameras and microphones, and so on. I think it was a great change in their lives although it was not their job. Compared to their regular work – for instance, some of my students work at KFC sorting out garbage – so I think this kind of work is nice for them, and the experience with the media and publicity is a very happy one.”