Kapr
Lucie Králová
Czech Republic, Slovakia | 2022 | 91 min
World premiere
Language : Czech
Subtitles : English, French
This film traces the life of Jan Kapr, a prominent Czech composer of the 20th century. A documentary opera with an ambitious libretto and playful and refined editing work, Kapr Code is an unexpected celebration of creativity that shakes up our ideas of biography and pays tribute to the importance of resisting homologation and censorship through art and creation.
Jan Kapr was a key figure of contemporary music during the USSR era. Having lived from 1914 to 1988, his existence is tied to the destiny of socialism. An innovator and political figure, married twice, the extremely prolific – having produced around 180 scores – Czech composer’s life is paradigmatic of the complexity of living as an artist under an authoritarian regime. Rewarded with the Stalin Award in 1951, he would gradually be silenced because of his integrity and artistic freedom. Lucia Králová rejects the simple portrait, entering instead into a dialogue with Kapr: she chooses to create an operatic piece to narrate the rise and fall of the composer. With the complicity of Jiří Adámek, the libretto of Kapr Code is a correspondence between past and present, in which an entire philharmonic dialogue with Kapr’s compositions searches for the perfect tone of the story. With the same approach, the director blends private archives with new images, revealing the hidden traces of a troubled man. In this masterful orchestration of music and images, Lucie Králová reaffirms the importance of creation as a political act.
Rebecca De Pas
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New Eternity, 2016
Czech Man, 2016
Searching For Surreal, 2015
Anatomy of The Atheist, 2014
Philosophy For Children, 2012
Life In Concept, 2011
The Czech Hump, 2009
Legion, Patria Nostra, 2008
Lost Holiday, 2007
Borders of Smell, 2006
Sold, 2005
Kids from Hartmanice, 2005
Überzwerg, 2003
The Ill-fated Child, 2003