She Came at Night

Jirka and Aneta are a young couple who enjoy the routine of their quiet relationship and are in no hurry to make big decisions in life. One night in their inherited flat, the doorbell rings and standing at the door is Jirka’s mother Valerie. An initially brief visit turns into a never-ending stay by an intense and caustic diva whose presence fundamentally disrupts the couple’s privacy. Certainties are shaken, boundaries broken. Although the film’s directorial duo works with a familiar premise, they subvert any dark humor with a sense of tension more commonly found in horror movies, all of it wrapped in the penetrating question: Is the mother’s unbearable smothering legitimate or are mothers sometimes the biggest monsters of all? (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)