On October 23 at 19:00, Jam Factory Art Center will host a showing of Karol Filo’s audiovisual documentary performance “The Good Times Are Over” — a work about the relationship between a grandson and his grandfather that asks to what extent a person is shaped by the environment they live in.
About the performance
“If we made a performance about us, what would it look like?”
An art student from Prague meets an agronomist from a Slovak farmstead on a sofa in a house where three generations live. They talk about the past, the present, and the future of the world. This encounter becomes an attempt to explore how much a person is shaped by their environment, as well as a search for ways to build a social dialogue between generations during a visit to a grandfather.
Duration: 50 minutes.
A discussion with the audience will follow the performance. The discussion will be held in Ukrainian.
Workshop
On October 24, Karol Filo will also lead a workshop on documenting the political. The workshop combines a conversation about ethics, power, and the artist’s responsibility with an analysis of the performance and practical exercises. Join the workshop by prior registration.
About the artist
Karol Filo is an interdisciplinary artist, theatre maker, and performer. Born in Slovakia, he lives and works in Prague. He studied at the Department of Alternative and Puppet Theatre of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, in the “Non-Linear Narrative” program, as well as at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and at an art college in Utrecht (the Netherlands).
His documentary performances “language barrier equal” and “The Good Times Are Over” won the Project of the Year award (2022, 2025) at the příští vlna / New Wave festival in the Czech Republic. Karol is currently working on the performance “Non-Violent Bodies,” which he began creating during a residency at HELLERAU. It has already been presented at FFT Düsseldorf, CRIC Skopje, and OSTEN Festival, and will next be shown at HAU in Berlin and Studio Alta in Prague.
Karol works with themes such as intimacy, polarization, violence, morality, resistance, hierarchies of power, propaganda, and colonialism. These interest him primarily outside the stage, so he explores them in real situations, relationships, inner conflicts, and imagination. In his work, he combines documentary, theatrical, cinematic, conceptual, and ethnographic approaches. His practice is research-based: through it, he seeks to understand reality, engages with it, and observes how different actors and factors change one another.
Details
Date & time: October 23, 2026, 19:00
Location: Jam Factory Art Center, 124 B. Khmelnytskoho St., Novo1 Hall
Tickets: Full ticket – 300 UAH
Discounted ticket – 150 UAH (50% discount for school students, university students, and internally displaced persons)
Free admission (10 seats) by registration for:
– students of Theatre Arts programs
– pensioners
– veterans
– military personnel
*Please present a document confirming eligibility at the entrance.
Team
Author / performer: Karol Filo
Assistant of director: Olesia Usata
Dramaturgy: Domen Šuman, Viktor Prokop
3D animation: Jan Froněk
Supervision: Sodja Lotker
Consultations: Adam Dragun, Jiří Adámek
Production: Rekultur production platform, KLAS CREW z.s.
The project is funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.
The project was supported by the State Fund of Culture of the Czech Republic, SGS AMU, KALD DAMU, Stanica Žilina-Záriečie, Venuše ve Švehlovce, ARCHA+, HELLERAU.
Photos from event
