Home Land

Demian, Daniel, Jaroslav, Sonia, and Veronika come from two warring Eastern European countries. Fate has brought them together in a class at the Prague Centre for Integration of Foreigners. They are trying to grasp not only the local language, culture and environment, but also the hostility of Czech society towards people whose mother tongue is Russian or Ukrainian. For over a year, the film tracks the teenagers and their efforts to fit into both the education system and the work environment while their minds are occupied with concerns about home and their loved ones, as well as school, basketball and art. Portraits of daily life are combined with their insights and witty observations to compose a narrative about the search for one’s place in a destabilised world.