Crimson Sails

Colour, 35mm
Czech Republic, 2001, 80 min
Section: Czech Films

Synopsis

An artistic documentary inspired by the theatre production of the same name performed (by the Forman Brothers’ Theatre and the French Théatre Dromesko) to a literary text by Alexander Grin. The original performance, which came out of an event planned for Prague 2000 – European City of Culture, was realised on a river boat that toured various European Ports. Using a wide variety of stylistic approaches, the film records the complex reconstruction of the theatre boat and mingles it with generous excerpts of the performance. The result is a complex original statement about the mystery of artistic creation, of poetry and perhaps even of human life. This story of making a dream come true is rounded out with interviews with the captain and other members of the theatre-sailor ensemble, chiefly the main ‘actors’ – director Petr and principal artist Matěj – the sons of director Miloš Forman.

About the director

Miroslav Janek (b. 1954, Náchod, Czechoslovakia) began as an amateur. In 1980 he emigrated to the USA where he worked with a variety of documentarists (e.g. Godfrey Reggio). Since the mid nineties he’s been back working in his own country. His biggest success to date was The Unseen (1997), a movie about photographing blind children. Janek’s extensive filmography includes: Seven Ten Nečtiny (1993), Králík and His Guests (1995), Baroque Opera (1997), Hamsa, I Am (1999) and Musicians (1999). In 2000 he and two other directors wrote and directed the feature-length documentary Battle for Life (a shared Best Documentary and the Special Jury Prize for a documentary at the Karlovy Vary IFF).