The Painted Bird

“Light is visible only in the dark”

Eastern Europe, during World War II: a Jewish boy, Joska (Petr Kotlár), is left on his own after losing his parents, and he sets out across the countryside looking for someone who will take him in. Václav Marhoul adapts Jerzy Kosiński's novel and has the villagers speak Interslavic, so no Slavic nation can claim the story as its own. The film follows Joska from one stranger's door to the next, a small boy walking alone through a war.