Ján Langoš, Guardian of Memory

The life story of dissident and politician Ján Langoš, co-founder of the Public Against Violence movement, federal interior minister from 1990 to 1992 and founder of Slovakia’s National Memory Institute. Drawing on photographs and archival footage, the documentary Strážce paměti Ján Langoš (Guardian of Memory Ján Langoš) (directed by Břetislav Rychlík, original idea and screenplay by Alexander Balogh and Břetislav Rychlík) follows his widow Gaby as she visits a number of important places in his life and also features recollections from his childhood friends, two daughters, brother, colleagues and friends. The film doesn’t set out to map Ján Langoš’s life. Rather it attempts, in poetic cinematic language, to sketch the journey of an engaged person who tackled evil (and not just communism) head-on, a person governed by the belief that we must find the courage to be responsible for our own fates.