Fool

“No good deed goes unpunished” was the starting point for creating our film “Fool”. Many stories have been told about heroes who are rewarded for their honesty with wealth, happiness, or a new chance. We wanted to tell the same story but change its ending. As viewers, we understand that we must avoid doing evil, yet at the same time we know that altruism and good deeds very often do not lead to the outcomes we expect. While writing the film, I kept asking myself how can we remain honest when the reality around us rewards dishonesty instead. Does following moral rules mean being a simple naive fool?

Personally, I believe that the most compelling stories are those in which the protagonist starts from a losing position and is confronted with a task that seems impossible to accomplish. This is how we constructed our main character and the entire setup of his situation. Andrei finds himself in a foreign country, in a foreign hostel, unable to speak the language, and forced to deal with a situation he is clearly not prepared for. In this moment of crisis, we place him in a series of dilemmas that ask whether he should save himself or someone else. I wanted viewers, while watching the film, to confront this question themselves. At the same time, it was very important to me to draw attention to the issue of contemporary economic exploitation, a phenomenon that occurs far more often than we tend to think, often right next to us.