A new documentary by filmmaker Olga Sommerová, titled Nech plakat jen polovinu srdce (Let Only Half Your Heart Cry), explores the world of palliative care, focusing on the stories of families navigating unimaginable loss. The film centers around the Vlček family and their estate, Cibulka, and the experiences of parents who have lost children.
In a recent interview, Sommerová discussed why the subject of death is so deeply personal to her and how she hadn’t previously grasped the profound grief experienced by those who have lost a child.
“I think what’s happening now in palliative care is something my generation, and those before us, never experienced,” Sommerová said. “The transformation of medical – especially psychological – and spiritual care is absolutely revolutionary.”
The interview also covers:
- What troubles Olga Sommerová.
- Her experience filming the documentary about palliative care.
- Whether she found any hope in the subject of palliative care.
- How the death of a child changes parents.
- Why the director refuses to engage with people she labels as part of a segment of society she calls “the desolate.”
How are you, Olga? It’s been many years since we’ve seen each other, and our previous meetings were quite intense.
Well, how am I… I should be doing well, looking forward to spring. But, like many other people and my friends, I’m troubled by the current political situation. It’s scandalous what’s happening.
But this time, I’ve decided I don’t want to fall back into societal depression again. I won’t let the last years of my life be ruined. I experienced depression for twenty years during the normalization period, and again during the first Babiš government.
And now I’ve told myself that I won’t let myself be completely drawn into it. At the same time, I think everyone can do something slight for democracy. For resisting the horrors that are coming at us. Because they really are horrors.
You say you won’t let the last years of your life be spoiled – and you’re saying that the day after the first screening of your new documentary. It’s about people, respectively, children and their last days, weeks, months. Is that connected to your new mindset? Did you realize during filming how precious every day is and that you want to protect yourself from politics?
No, that’s not connected. I’m set up so that I necessitate to live in democracy and freedom. I’ve always been that way. And now I see that we’re moving away from freedom. I read the news, comments… But I want to look at it more as a performance now. Then the performance ends and…
And there isn’t much applause here.
There isn’t applause here, you’re right. Martin Šimečka’s book, Výjimečný stav aneb Jak dobře žít ve zlých časech (Exceptional State or How to Live Well in Bad Times), helped me a lot. He draws on his experience from the dissent movement he participated in as a young man. He offers living in freedom and truth in a parallel polis as a possible solution, an idea that Václav Benda came up with.
That’s how they lived during totalitarianism, in truth and in genuine friendship, for which they risked their opposition to the totalitarian regime and the dangers that came with it. That’s how it is being lived again today in Slovakia. Comfort from friendship, unofficial culture. That book helped me a lot.
Being, or Not Being Completely Happy
Let’s return to your new film. When I watched it, your old film, Přežili jsme svoje děti (We Survived Our Children), immediately came to mind. Did you find more hope in your new documentary than you did then?
When a child dies, it’s a pain that was unknown until then, a cruel blow of fate. Perhaps I was able to find more hope this time because I was filming empathetic doctors from the children’s oncology department at Motol University Hospital, Lucia Hrdličková, Josef Mališ, Tereza Doušová, and Gražina Kokešová. And, above all, the team at the Vlček Family Foundation.
Katarína Vlčková and Ondřej Vlček have invested one and a half billion crowns into the foundation. That money is going towards building a children’s hospice at Cibulka, but primarily towards programs that are finally developing palliative care in the Czech Republic. Ondřej Vlček hopes that palliative care in the Czech Republic will be at a world-class level within ten years.
I made the film Přežili jsme svoje děti because it’s our family trauma. My parents buried two sons. One of my brothers died when…
