The Golden Touch
Date:
December 28, 2024
The Golden Touch
The Golden Touch
by Matěj Paclík
Breathless Films | Czech Republic
Habsurd crime
Logline
A young influencer Adam kidnaps his former friend and collaborator Honza to stop him from ruining his image on social media. As the kidnapping spirals out of control, Adam loses face and finally learns that the only thing he can’t curate is reality.
Synopsis
Adam, a young influencer, believes that everything he touches turns into success. When his former collaborator and friend Honza begins to mock him on social media, he decides to solve the situation “gangster-style.”
Together with his loyal cameraman Viktor and Viktor’s friend, an MMA fighter named Genci, Adam kidnaps Honza in order to obtain his login details and delete the humiliating posts. During one night in the centre of Prague, the group grabs the unsuspecting Honza while he is walking his dog, and drives him to an exterior set of a medieval town on the outskirts of the city where Adam’s girlfriend Aneta is waiting. Under the artificial glare of film lights, they open the trunk, sit Honza on a chair, and film the entire “extraction” as blackmail. To the surprise of the kidnappers, the psychological pressure breaks Honza instantly. Peeing himself, he immediately gives up his passwords.
After this, everyone gradually turns away from Adam. A seemingly controlled operation quickly proves fragile. Genci leaves when Adam refuses to return the favour for his help, Aneta is frightened by Honza’s condition and Adam’s selfishness, and Viktor is eventually sent away.
The balance of power between Adam and Honza begins to shift. What started as an act of domination turns into an uneasy confrontation between two former collaborators, where control, guilt, admiration, and resentment collide, forcing both men to confront the damage they have done to each other.
Author’s Note
This film is about losing one’s face. What remains of a person, in our case Adam, when everything he built collapses in front of others. His world is full of people who nod along, yet none of them truly understands him. They can’t, because he never lets anyone close enough to see his real self behind the image and ego he performs.
When his perfect image begins to crack, he reacts illogically and instinctively, in a “gangster” way. The film is not just about a kidnapping, but about a man trying to stop the disintegration of his own ego.
The story is inspired by a real case that surfaced in the Czech media this year, in which a group led by a media entrepreneur kidnapped the creator of a satirical account mocking their project. Its absurdity felt like a precise portrait of today’s world and Gen Z. As in the real case, there are no purely good or bad sides. Morality is not the point. Everyone contributes to the collapse in their own way.
I approach The Golden Touch as a stylised absurd crime film combining tension and grotesque humour. It is a story about control, self-image, power games and self-destruction. When Adam takes “justice” into his own hands, he triggers the breakdown of the world he built. Adam and Honza are not opposites but two sides of the same coin — Dorian Gray and his portrait.
For me it is a story about the emptiness that arises when a person becomes consumed by their own image — a world where reality has been replaced by performance, and empathy by ambition.
Company Profile
Breathless Films is an independent Prague-based production company founded in 2018 by producer Matěj Paclík, focused on supporting debut and early-career filmmakers. Its credits include Our Lovely Pig Slaughter by Adam Martinec (Karlovy Vary IFF, Crystal Globe Competition, Special Mention), the short Anatomy of a Czech Afternoon (Czech Lion & Czech Film Critics’ Award for Best Short Film), Sugar and Salt (San Sebastián IFF), and the documentary feature Bedwetter (Ji.hlava IDFF, Best Camera Award).
Breathless Films is currently developing a diverse slate of new fiction and documentary projects, including the psychological horror Smearhead, the surreal road movie Moochers, the feature documentary Foyer Europe, and the absurd crime short The Golden Touch. Alongside its own productions, the company offers service production in the Czech Republic and is actively seeking international projects for minority co-production.