Uchazeč – Kubík Lubomír (2025)

Reporter and Doctor of Philosophy Erwin Habr arrives at a Viennese sanatorium, where he meets the elderly professor Rudolf Kapin, who suffers from war traumas. The dying academic is burdened by a long-standing guilt that he wishes to confess and discuss. In the distant past, he served as a member of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, which twice rejected young Adolf Hitler as a candidate for study.

Concurrently, we observe the period when Hitler is consolidating power and racial and other purges begin. The question of guilt becomes significant and intertwines with the paranoid fear of some academics regarding the 'applicant's' revenge. Others, on the other hand, remain calm and assume the 'Leader's' gratitude, as if Hitler had been accepted to the school, their rejection would not have allowed his political rise.

Set against a historical backdrop, a psychological story unfolds before us, telling of the eternal theme of guilt and punishment. The author considers the extent to which a person is responsible for the indirect consequences of their actions and, through his characters, offers various ways to approach this dilemma. All of this is framed by a strong, original, and captivating story, interspersed with contemplative passages about humanity, as well as the influence of art on the course of history and human society...