Return to Life

One city, four social housing units, five life stories.

RETURN TO LIFE is a feature-length time-lapse documentary following participants in the global Housing First project, which was launched in 2020 in Otrokovice, a small town in South Moravia near Zlín.

As part of the Housing First program, the city provides socially disadvantaged homeless people with a fully-fledged apartment, after which social workers help them find employment and, among other things, teach them how to manage their money. With such a foundation, they can then better reintegrate into society.

RETURN TO LIFE takes viewers through the emotionally powerful life stories of selected protagonists of this project who have had a difficult past: whether it is a 20-year-old squatter struggling with recurrent drug addiction, a middle-aged man struggling with fatigue syndrome, depressive disorder and social phobia, or a trio of fifty-somethings – a married couple moving into social housing from a dilapidated shop window, and a recovering alcoholic who previously survived in a devastated family house in a field by the highway.

The filmmakers recorded the new lives of these five individuals using a time-lapse method over a period of three years – from their initial move into the social housing entrusted to them to their subsequent, more or less successful attempts at resocialization.

The film had its international premiere at the Astra Film Festival in Romania, followed by screenings at the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival and the One World Festival (Slovakia).