The delegation accompanying Duchoň received enthusiastic praise from the Karlovy Vary audience. The film, made in part by collaboration with his family, captures the almost impossibly fast-paced life of the Slovak pop star from the normalisation era. The filmmakers consulted with relatives to piece together key details, and the singer’s daughter even appears in a small role. Although some of the stories were hard for the family to believe, many of Karol Duchoň’s wilder escapades – especially from his famously chaotic tours – were confirmed by his friends. “He was fast and intense. There are many parts of his life that may have been hidden from his family. For instance, he got divorced and remarried within just seven days,” the filmmakers explained.
Audience questions focused largely on lead actor Vladislav Plevčík, who underwent extensive physical transformations for the role. While shooting began each day at eight in the morning, he had to be in the makeup chair already by three. The process of developing the right combination of makeup and costumes took nearly two years, in close collaboration with the lead cinematographer, to faithfully portray three distinct physical stages of the singer’s life. Although Plevčík had to endure the extreme heat wearing the prosthetics, he did not complain: “The role was demanding and difficult. But there is nothing more rewarding than doing something difficult.”
The film has its roots in Jiří Havelka’s stage play The Earth Remembers, which – like the film – is highly stylized. Director Peter Bebjak embraced this from the beginning, saying stylization was necessary to convey a condensed but emotionally resonant portrait. He described the film as a kind of music video clip of Karol Duchoň’s life. Producer Rastislav Šesták noted that one of the biggest challenges was securing the rights to the music. Due to the legacy of the previous regime, negotiations had to begin from scratch with foreign rights holders – a process that took three years. Some original Slovak versions had to remain unchanged, but others were newly performed by Plevčík, who worked closely with a vocal coach who had recorded with Duchoň himself. Plevčík’s powerful vocal performance was met with thunderous applause from the audience.
