Alda

Mrs O. tosses a chicken from her balcony. Mrs O. thinks her neighbor is a secret agent. Mrs O. has Alzheimer’s, but her pet name for her disease is “Alda.” With great humor, irony, and self-deprecating insight, this defiant and willful woman commentates on her own daily life in Prague. There’s a list on the door of friends and family members she’s allowed to let in even if she doesn’t recognize them. Sometimes she thinks she’s living under Communist rule, and she worries that if she doesn’t hang out a flag on Labor Day she’ll be arrested.

Using a small camera, Mrs O. shoots this film herself. The chronology of some of her stories is jumbled up, and her shots are sometimes misty and blurred—all perfectly reflecting her internal state of confusion. Her recollections, thoughts, and surges of emotion feed into a painfully honest document that is also an attempt to prevent her forgetting herself in a future without memories. The screenplay is inspired by the diaries written by Oldřiška Ševelová about her life with Alzheimer’s.