Unraveling the Mystery of Viktor Kalivoda: The Forest Killer Documentary and His Disturbing Past

The film Lesní vrah defies everything expected from the true crime genre. Viktor Kalivoda hardly speaks in it, we can read his inner demons only from his facial expressions. The reasons that led to it are still a mystery until the last picture. What should viewers take away from the film?

I think they could learn something about themselves, about their relationship with violence and with society. I hope they will then be more attentive to their loved ones. Viktor Kalivoda’s misfortune was that he was terribly lonely. It was the abandonment that led to attempts to take his own life and later to murder him.

In the film, we see a handsome, athletic young man who comes from a good family. Viktor Kalivoda’s mother was a doctor, his father worked for NATO. Shortly before he committed the crimes, he himself took part in the quiz Do you want to be a millionaire?, from which he won 320,000 crowns.

Yes, Kalivoda was intelligent above average, he had an IQ of about 130. He studied at several universities, spent at least one year as a police officer, but eventually left all fields. In a letter from prison that he sent to his parents, he said that no school had anything to offer him.

Did he reveal in the letter what he was eating so much? He confessed about the murders to the detectives who arrested him, but he kept saying that they had nothing to do with his motives.

He did not write about any childhood trauma in the letter. So he probably grew up quite normal, like all of us. That’s why screenwriter Zdenek Holý and I didn’t want to make a classic biographical film that would go back to Kalivod’s youth, and we decided to capture only the last year of his life. It was this minimalist design that drew me to the subject the most.

But coming back to your question, I would say that Kalivoda gradually got into a hostile relationship with the outside world. He decided to kill himself, but he could not take his own life. So we assume that he wanted to get into a situation desperate enough to be able to commit suicide, which he finally succeeded in Valdice prison. He was counting on him getting a life sentence for triple murder, and then committing the crime. For him, crimes were a means of self-destruction.

You consulted about the film with Colonel Michal Mazánek, who led the investigation of the case. Did he learn more during the interrogation than we see on screen, or did the letter reveal his inner workings?

We capture the question faithfully in the film. Kalivoda confessed to the police about the murders, he described exactly what, where and how he did it, but they did not get the reasons from him. It was only when his father gave the investigators a letter he had written to him that Michal Mazánek and his colleagues learned, for example, that Kalivoda first tested the weapon on cattle. He admitted that he had to overcome a lot the first time, and when he shot the cow, he didn’t feel good at all. A few days later, however, he repeated it on the other herd, found that it was getting better, so eventually he went on to humans as well.

As the true nature of crime continues to grow, the question arises whether we should even try to understand serial killers like Viktor Kalivoda and devote media space to evil. How do you feel about it?

Many are talking about the danger of reporting, which is indeed here. Kalivoda himself was inspired by Olga Hepnarová, who drove a truck into a tram stop in the 1970s and killed eight people. In a letter from prison, he said he wanted to finish what Hepnarová had failed to do. It seems that he intended to shoot passengers in the Prague subway. According to Michal Mazánek, the police only stopped him from doing that by arresting him at half past eight in the morning, just as the armed man was leaving his apartment. That’s why we didn’t want to influence Kalivoda in any way.

But I think it’s important to try to understand serial killers. Only then can we do something about evil. Actions like this usually arise not only from mental disturbances, but also from the social context. In my opinion, in the Czech Republic we do not put enough emphasis on prevention or psychological support. Psychiatric care is very neglected in our country. In addition, today people are becoming more alienated, spending much more time on social networks than coming together. The internet is also where pathological behavior patterns spread more easily.

You also like the true crime genre as a viewer. Didn’t we like it because we are fascinated by evil?

Yes, but the interest in evil has been here for a long time. It may seem like more serial killer stories are being filmed now than ever before. In the past, however, war films were the most successful, films about Hitler and other criminals in the history of the world were killed. But also films about uncertain individuals, such as Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. So there is nothing new.

We didn’t like to look at only advanced heroes who don’t have a problem for a long time. We are looking for stories that have some darkness or pain in them as well. When we watch movies and series based on real crimes, we can think that we ourselves would not be able to do something similar and where does evil come from in a person.

You started working on the film Forest Killer eight years ago. Coincidentally, however, it is released four months after the shooting at the Faculty of Philosophy in Prague. Are you worried about the timing of the premiere, or do you see it as an opportunity to reflect on the tragic event?

We had planned the first scene of April even before the shooting at the philosophy faculty. Of course, we were surprised by the events of December and discussed how to deal with them. That is also why we have combined the Forest Killer shows with discussions in which both Michal Mazánek and the psychologist Karel Netík, who treated Kalivoda, will participate.

I think it is obvious that we are not concerned about any awareness, but we want to find broader questions that the case of the forest killer could raise. Naturally, the subject of the December hunt also appears in the debates, and we will not avoid it in any way. I myself see similar characteristics between the two perpetrators. Both were lone wolves, Kalivoda could have done something similar in the Prague subway if the police had not arrested him.

“If wolves decide to do something and it is well planned, there is no way to detect them in advance and how to prevent their actions,” says Špaček. | Photo: Honza Mudra

In the film, you really praise the loneliness of Kalivod and his efforts to separate himself from the world. You yourself went through an unsuccessful suicide attempt in your youth. Did that give you some insight into his desperation?

Yes, I have some basic understanding of his knowledge. After all, many people go through a phase of depression and sadness in their youth. Between the years of, say, fifteen and twenty-five, we have rather mixed feelings about the world around us, many of us at this age are not completely balanced in our minds. Rarely, however, does our loss translate into such pathological behavior. Most people, including me, come to terms with their own demons over time, learn to work with them and take control of their lives, even if it’s difficult at times. .

This brings me back to the lack of mental support. If Kalivoda had trusted someone, maybe nothing would have happened. But he was a lone wolf, and if wolves decide to do something and be well planned, there is no way to detect them in advance and prevent their actions .

In an interview with Český rozhlas Plus, you admitted that you have been fascinated by the subject of death since your first feature-length album Mladí muži knožnáj svět, which you filmed in Sarajevo under siege in the middle of the 1990s What brought you to the war-torn former Yugoslavia?

Lack of self-preservation. Even as a little boy I was very adventurous, I was unruly in my teens, I left home at sixteen and I always wanted adventure. During the war in the former Yugoslavia, I was currently studying at FAMU and made friends there with classmates from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. I was nineteen and I did not understand at all how the conflict could arise. I didn’t manage to watch everything just on TV news, so I took the opportunity to join the Italian peace march that was going there.

I ended up spending a year in Sarajevo and decided to make a documentary about young people who wanted nothing to do with the war. I felt like one of them and I could not imagine that we would face something similar in the Czech Republic. But a person can do something like that once in a lifetime, I wouldn’t go into it today.

The idea that today you would go to Ukraine with a camera and map how the young people there are victims of Russian aggression, did it not cross your mind?

I shot a documentary in Ukraine in 2015, shortly after the annexation of Crimea, and I was looking for the historical roots of the current relationship with Russia. But I wouldn’t jump right into the war today. After all, I already appreciate my life a little more than when I was twenty, and I prefer to leave it to younger people.

Watch the trailer for The Woodland Killer: