The Karamazovs

Colour, 35 mm
Czech Republic, Poland, 2008, 100 min
IP – International premiere
Section: Official Selection - Competition

Synopsis

A theatre company from Prague arrives in Cracow to present a stage adaptation of Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov at the city’s alternative drama festival; the production is to be staged in an unusual venue – the local steelworks. As rehearsals get under way, we follow not only the emotional story examining issues of faith, immortality and the salvation of the human soul, but also the relationships within the acting troupe itself, which strangely reflect Dostoevsky’s “great” themes. The stage drama is transferred to the real world when a tragedy occurs during rehearsal involving one of the spectators... “My interest lies in the responsibility of the intellectual for the ideas he himself proclaims to a society which has lost its faith in God and thus also its basic moral instincts,” says director Petr Zelenka. In both his chosen theme and form, the filmmaker has come up with an exceptional piece, oscillating between fiction and documentary and centred on the successful production presented by Prague’s Dejvice Theatre. The play was directed by Lukáš Hlavica and based on the famous dramatisation by Evald Schorm at Na zábradlí theatre.

About the director

Petr Zelenka (b. 1967, Prague) is one of the Czech Republic’s most highly regarded screenwriters and directors. He studied scriptwriting and dramaturgy at FAMU (1991) and then worked as a script editor at Barrandov film studios. He wrote the script for the short Allenesque piece Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex but Were Afraid to Experience (1999, dir. Jan Hřebejk) and for the box-office hit comedy Loners (2000, dir. David Ondříček). In 1993 he directed the fictional feature-length documentary Padlock (Visací zámek 1982-2007), which he followed with the similarly conceived Mňága – Happy End (1996). He then made his award-winning feature debut Buttoners (1997 – Czech Lion for Best Czech Film, among others), Year of the Devil (2002 — Crystal Globe at the KVIFF) and an adaptation of his own stage play which won the prestigious Alfréd Radok prize, Wrong Side Up (2005).