{"id":40374,"date":"2025-07-05T09:04:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T09:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/40374\/"},"modified":"2025-07-05T09:04:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T09:04:10","slug":"2025-karlovy-vary-film-festival-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/40374\/","title":{"rendered":"2025 Karlovy Vary Film Festival Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cAn exclusive world, in which desirable prestige goes hand in hand with premature coming of age.\u201d That is how the website of the 59th edition<\/a>\u00a0of the Karlovy Vary\u00a0International\u00a0Film Festival<\/a> (KVIFF<\/a>) summarizes some of the conflicting factors that lead to, and enable, the traumatic in psychological drama Broken Voices (Sbormistr), the new film from Czech writer and director Ond\u0159ej Provazn\u00edk (Old-Timers, A Town Called Hermitage) that world premieres in the fest\u2019s main Crystal Globe Competition<\/a> on Sunday, July 6.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe cast of the Czech-Slovak co-production includes Juraj Loj (Agnieska Holland\u2019s Charlatan<\/a>) and an ensemble of mostly non-professional actors, led by Kate\u0159ina Falbrov\u00e1. Other cast members include Maya Kintera, Zuzana \u0160ulajov\u00e1, Marek Cisovsk\u00fd, Ivana Wojtylov\u00e1 and Barrandov Studio.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s the early 1990s, and 13-year-old Karol\u00edna, a gifted\u00a0novice singer, is given the chance to become a member of a world-famous girls\u2019 choir,\u201d reads a synopsis that turns darker when it mentions that \u201cKarol\u00edna\u2019s exceptional talent has caught the attention of the formidable and much-admired choirmaster.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEven ahead of its world premiere, the drama, whose Czech release via CinemArt is set for July 10 and for which Salaud Morissetis is handling world sales, has been highly anticipated in the Czech Republic, drawing attention and magazine covers. The reason: It calls to mind \u201cthe notorious case of Bambini di Praga, but also other devastating situations involving the clash of innocence and abusive authority,\u201d as the KVIFF site notes.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe famous Bambini di Praga girls\u2019 choir was a household name in the country and was for many years led by Bohumil Kul\u00ednsk\u00fd Jr., who took over from his father. In 2004, Kul\u00ednsk\u00fd Jr. was arrested and charged with various acts of sexual abuse of minors, with a tally of 49 victims between 1984 and 2004. In 2008, he was sentenced to three years in prison with parole, which was later extended to five and a half years in prison, a sentence that he started serving in January 2009. In June 2011, shortly after Kul\u00ednsk\u00fd\u2019s conditional release from prison, Bambini di Praga was shuttered. Kul\u00ednsk\u00fd died in September 2018.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo much of this story happened well before the hashtag #MeToo started coming into broader public view in 2017. \u201cWhen #MeToo started, it came back to me, and I said this is something very important for Czech society, and I think that there\u2019s material in this for a movie,\u201d Provazn\u00edk recalls to THR. \u201cSo, I started doing lots of research and interviews with former choir girls, watching things etc, and I started to work on the script.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tProvazn\u00edk approaches the difficult themes and topics raised in the film \u201cwithout sensationalism,\u201d as the KVIFF website highlights, and with much sensitivity, which he says his first-time actors needed to feel safe and flourish. \u201cI had to change a lot of things during the shooting to make it safe for them. We were really focusing on the safety and environment for all the actresses and for all the parents, and making sure they understood what the script was about,\u201d the writer-director recalls. \u201cWe knew I had to do it all in such a way that it would not traumatize our 13-year-old lead actress and the others.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJuraj Loj in \u2018Broken Voices\u2019 <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of KVIFF<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a lot of scenes, power imbalances, competitive spirits, jealousy and more are hinted at through camera work, framing, looks, gestures and movements. \u201cI really like to tell stories gently and to only give the audience hints or some signs, because it provokes the imagination and thinking,\u201d explains the director. \u201cSo, my aim from the beginning was to do that and to tell a story that even a broader audience can understand.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis was more than a storytelling style choice, though. \u201cI think that it\u2019s somehow imprinted in all these scandals and cases when they come out later, 15, 20 years after. There\u2019s always some kind of mystery hidden in it. Not everybody knows everything,\u201d highlights Provazn\u00edk. \u201cMost always only know part of the information. People guess some. Somebody knows more, somebody less. And this lack of full information and this mystery is what I wanted to put into the story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the Bambini di Praga scandal, for example, some girls and parents sided with the choirmaster and praised him.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe filmmaker originally wanted to write the script from the point of view the older sister. \u201cIt just didn\u2019t work, and I didn\u2019t know why, because I thought there was interesting drama in her, because she has a mix of jealousy, but also wants to protect the younger girl,\u201d he says \u201cBut they are in a prestigious club. And the older sister is already there, but the younger one is an outsider in the beginning. So when I changed the point of view, the story developed smoothly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNot that the two sisters\u2019 perspectives aren\u2019t both being explored. \u201cI knew exactly at every point what the older sister knows, or what happened to her, and I somehow tried to secretly imprint that in the film,\u201d Provazn\u00edk reveals. \u201cSo there are some hints about what has happened or happens to the older sister.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThrough the sister and other characters, the movie also explores how various people can sustain or enable a toxic system. \u201cThat\u2019s a very important part of the story, because when you are a teenager, you just don\u2019t know the consequences. Even as an adult, sometimes you don\u2019t know the consequences of the group that you\u2019re part of,\u201d says Provazn\u00edk. \u201cOf course, the main villain is obvious. But I wanted to portray this environment in all its complexity and not simple black-and-white morals. The main villain is clear, but the task for an artist is to also find some inner truth, some deeper truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMaya Kintera in \u2018Broken Voices\u2019 <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival<\/p>\n

\n\tAudiences won\u2019t guess that Broken Voices lead actress Kate\u0159ina Falbrov\u00e1 doesn\u2019t have an acting background. The director picked a singer by design. \u201cShe was totally a non-actor. It was the system I wanted to use from the beginning,\u201d says Provazn\u00edk. \u201cI want to play the real music and songs. My audience experience with many films with choirs or orchestras is that when the music starts, meaning the playback starts, the power of the film goes down 50 percent for me. So I wanted all the music scenes in the film to be live and without playback.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter six to seven years of work on Broken Voices, Provazn\u00edk says, \u201cit\u2019s very exhausting but very satisfying at the same time to make this film.\u201d What is next for him? \u201cRecently, I started to write a new story,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s about a university professor who goes to the Alps with 10 of his students for an anthropology seminar, and they are following the traces of the \u00d6tzi,\u201d sometimes also called The Iceman, a man whose mummy was discovered at the Austrian-Italian border in 1991. The man is estimated to have lived between 3350 and 3105 BC. \u201cIt is the oldest detective story as nobody knows who killed him. And so there are these parallels between this 5,000-year-old murder and the professor who has problems that are somehow catching up with him in the mountains.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAn exclusive world, in which desirable prestige goes hand in hand with premature coming of age.\u201d That is…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":40375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[171,1801,30451,30452,53,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-40374","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-international","10":"tag-karlovy-vary-international-film-festival","11":"tag-kviff","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114799828278318413","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}