Malinka – Táborská Dita (2017)

She was born in a maternity hospital, yet she is officially a foundling. When Ina and Jaromír adopted her alongside their two biological sons, almost every box on her birth certificate was filled with the entry 'Unknown.' Ina understood the struggles that Malka's complicated story brought her. She longed to be there for her, but often it just didn't work out. Twenty-two-year-old Malka finds herself in an unexpected life situation that forces her to fill the empty spaces in her life and answer the question of what actually makes a mother a mother. Forty-year-old Alice doesn't need to ponder this — she clearly senses it through her intuition, yet the complex constellations of motherhood that she finds herself in are also an unexpected challenge for her. The father of the child that connects both women is Alice's husband Roman, who deeply longs for a child. The novel 'Malinka' is primarily a briskly and wittily told story that depicts the crisis of human identity with uncompromising urgency, reflecting on its essence and the right to it. Parenthood in its many forms defies definitions within it. The characters of the novel need each other to live, but life often mischievously slaps them on the fingers.