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"Teases out the psychological roots of a stunning crime … intelligently dodges sensationalism throughout." – Variety
Olga Hepnarova – lesbian, loner, mass murderer – was the last woman executed in the former Czechoslovakia. In 1973, at the age of just 22, Hepnarova used a truck to run down eight people on a Prague sidewalk. It was a crime of sudden and clinical ferocity, whose fallout and subsequent trial shocked a nation. But who was Olga Hepnarova? What caused her to cross such a dangerous precipice? How did she become, in her own words, "a wreck, ruined by people"?
First-time directorial duo Petr Kazda and Tomas Weinreb cast an acute eye over the creeping tragedy of Hepnarova's life in the captivatingly austere psychodrama of I, Olga Hepnarova. Shot in lustrous black and white and led by a knockout performance from rising star Michalina Olszanska (The Lure, MIFF 2016) as the withdrawn, erratic Olga, it's a biopic of rare stature and sensitivity, whose unflinching gaze offers a chance at redemption for a woman betrayed by the world.
"The audience response was unlike anything I have witnessed in more than thirty years of cinema-going … arresting and powerful." – East European Film Bulletin
