While occasionally languorous, the 2026 Czech Oscar entry “I’m Not Everything I Want to Be” is one of the rare documentaries about an artist that goes above and beyond to embody its subject’s creative spirit, often to a fault. Whereas chronicles of its ilk tend to simply perceive their subjects’ work at a distance, Libuše Jarcovjáková, conscripts her as a co-author by having her read from her journals throughout the 1970s and ‘80s. It also uses her photographs, not just as a source, but as a primary medium. The film is composed entirely of her decades-old snapshots, and credits her as cinematographer.
The resultant photoroman (à la Chris Marker’s “La Jetée”) mimics movement through successive shots, and through the placement of each image on screen, while employing subtle foleys to create a soundscape of time and place. As Jarcovjáková travels from the former Czechoslovakia to Japan and West Berlin, navigating rejection and the lives of various lovers, the murmurs of voices, quiet footsteps and hums of crowded rooms accompany her striking black-and-white photography. Some images even expand and unfold, their hidden halves fading-in to reveal new layers and dimensions to the places and people she captured decades prior.
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While the movie’s English language title speaks to a constant state of confusion and contrition, its original name, “Ještě nejsem, kým chci být,” translates to the intriguing “I’m Not Yet Who I Want to Be” — note the “yet” — hinting at the film being a diary of not just self-image, but of personal and artistic process. Jarcovjáková, who has been dubbed the Nan Goldin of Czechoslovakia, captures stark and intimate images, revealing people through overexposed skin just as much as hiding them in shadow. Tasovská’s documentary is similar in this regard; it lines up just enough photographs and recollections to grant us access and insight, but not so much that we’re satiated all at once.
Jarcovjáková makes for a fascinating subject, especially as someone capturing her own emotional dissatisfaction through the contours of her body and face. However, owing to the nature of her photographs — slivers of time cemented in place, and never intended for motion — there’s only so long “I’m Not Everything I Want to Be” can go without feeling outstretched. While each of the images, individually, features the suggestion of motion (in some cases, ethereal strokes of light exposed at length), Jarcovjáková’s collection as a whole isn’t a narrative in nature, at least not in the way we might think of narratives in cinema.
A gallery of Jarcovjáková’s work might gesture towards her larger story, meant to be pondered over at a leisurely pace. But Tasovská’s film charges forward breathlessly at breakneck speed. This isn’t a cardinal sin, but the approach presents a challenge for the movie to overcome, which it only manages to in moments of denouement. Its connective tissue, however, might lose the viewer along the way, as it coheres only into a distant political analysis of the world around its subject, seldom offering us enough time to get fully absorbed in the meaning of her imagery.
State homophobia is a key concern in Jarcovjáková’s work, and she finds comfort through observation, highlighting life in all its hues, albeit behind closed doors. Tasovská mirrors this creative instinct in energetic ways, between using strobing effects to match the intoxicating chaos of Prague’s queer nightlife (accompanied by a modern, techno-infused tracks by DJ GÄP) and by introducing color in fleeting moments of liberation. Beyond a point, Jarcovjáková considers herself a perpetual outsider, more comfortable at the margins — whether as an outcast in her own country (and among its Romani populace), or as a guest in someone else’s.
The movie builds admirably to these moments, where the euphoria of fragile belonging is front and center. However, in the interim, one might become impatient for Tasovská to turn the next corner of Jarcovjáková’s story, leaving little room to ruminate, as a good photography exhibition would. The handshake of different artistic forms that the film attempts is commendable in spirit, and it often yields remarkable results, even if the whole is seldom satisfying.
