Plot

In 1969 a pregnant 18-year old girl flees her country with her married lover as the Russian tanks roll into the streets of Prague. They end up in Norway. They have a daughter. They become successful in the world of theater. At the height of fortune the beautiful mother decides to send her 14-year-old daughter away from the family. They are never to live together after that. The movie is an emotional journey of the daughter trying to map the disintegration of her home. It is an intimate story of her own family, with gleams of her childhood in Norway, her exile in USA, and her return to the Czech Republic. Scenes of lonely characters set in different landscapes inter cut with tragicomic meetings of family members who live their separate lives in various countries but who desperately try to reach each other. The author is searching in Prague, Oslo and Los Angeles trying to find out where her true home is.—Margareta Hruza

The movie Home is a personal witness of the effects of emigration. In 1968, while the Russian tanks are rolling in on Prague, 18 year old pregnant Madla is running away with her married lover, stage designer, Lubos Hruza, to Oslo, Norway, where their daughter, Margareta, is born. During some hard working years they reach great success in the theater business and they build the house of their dreams. On the height of fame, beauty and success, the mother decides to send her 14 year old daughter away from the family. From that moment on they are never to live together as a family again.

Margareta is following the path of disintegration of her own family, and through the help of intimate confessions she is searching for answers to finding her lost home in Los Angeles, Prague and Oslo. Through her childhood memories we see a sketch of the family life she grew up in, a family life neglected by parents who never had time because of their high ambitions. Through dialogs she evokes memories of turning points in her family life, and she is trying with this to cure her homesickness, a longing for a home which hasnt existed for 20 years.

Margareta Hruza with her Czech origins, a Norwegian citizenship and many years of studies in USA, can be considered a world citizen, but her situation has made an irreversible mark on her. That is why she confronts her parents and brings them together in a challenging situation in her original home country, Norway. Old pictures, photographs and furniture are all playing a part in bringing out painful memories, and it is just these items that can bring out the old pain, trauma and longing. And perhaps also understanding and mutual forgiveness.

The documentary film Home is not just a personal film. It also tells of the general trauma of emigration, which had an irreversible effect on many Czechs who ran away from the august invasion in 1968. In general the film also witnesses a general trend among many of feeling misplaced in todays globalization. Sometimes it is necessary to return to ones roots in order to come in terms with oneself and once lifestyle.

The film Home is a directors cut from the film Night Talks, which Margareta Hruza shot in 2005 for ARTE Television and YLE. The documentary film received support of the Czech Republic State Film Fund and was developed in the workshop of East European Forum 2003, organized by the Institute of Documentary Film.