„Young love is a paradise,“ sings the robotic grandmother to herself and it’s always a sheer pleasure to throw a Czech log on the shockproof film bonfire. The 1983 Czechoslovak sci-fi horror comedy Charge Your Grandmas Properly! provides a visionary look at the pitfalls of human-robot coexistence. In the story the authors play out the absurd motif of a domestic robotic grandma programmed to love „her“ family unconditionally. The tech company Biotex offers a revolutionary home care solution to employed women in the form of nanatechnology aka a wide range of electronic grandmothers. However such cyber grannies can wreak quite havoc on the life of a typical socialistic family. For the director Ladislav Rychman, former author of the acclaimed musical Green Gold, the film became a swan song of his long film career. Don’t miss this rare opportunity of an English-friendly screening of this bizarre offspring of the communist era film industry, that will help you understand your Czech neighbours better. When considering the pros and cons of coming to the screening, you should not omit the fact that Grandmas beat Cameron’s overrated Terminator to the cinemas by a whole year!
