VIRUSFILM

Kapr Code

2022 / releasead

Life as a composition in the documentary opera.

Documentary opera exploring the nature of memory, music, and narration through imprints of controversial and progressive composer Jan Kapr, awarded by Stalin and later completely banned in communist Czechoslovakia, but performed abroad by prestigious musical bodies.

Kapr Code transfers Kapr’s strong and ambivalent life story into opera music composition. The storyline follows the “documentary libretto” based on Kapr’s personal, never before published archive full of his magnetic tapes, letters, notes and funny sketches on 8 mm films.

17 opera singers from internationally renowned Czech Philharmonic Choir Brno sing scenes from Kapr’s life, including fragments of police reports, Kapr’s political accounts or love correspondence. Their choirmaster, Petr Fiala, is Kapr’s last living student.

Kapr Code is a playful reconstruction of life after death; where the memory of film and Kapr’s music interacts with a story gaining mythological dimensions.

  • Kapr Code
  • CZ, SK 2022
  • Director: Lucie Králová
  • Cinematograph: Tomáš Stanek, Adam Oľha, Petr Příkaský
  • Editor: Adam Brothánek
  • Librettist: Jiří Adámek
  • Music composer: Petra Šuško
  • Performed by: Czech Philharmonic Choir Brno
  • Choirmaster: Petr Fiala
  • Story editing: Jan Gogola jr.
  • Producers: Andrea Shaffer – Mindset Pictures (CZ), Martin Řezníček – DOCUfilm (CZ)
  • Co-producers: Vít Janeček – VIRUSfilm (SK), Helena Uldrichová – Czech TV (CZ)
  • Support: Czech Film Fund (CZ), Audiovisual Fund (SK), South-Moravian Film Fund (CZ), Czech Ministry of Culture (CZ)

Trailer

Festivals
Visions du Réel (2022, world premiere, official selection), MFF Krakow (2022, Golden Heynal Award), Dok.Fest Munich (2022, official selection), See the Sound Koln (2022, official selection), IFF BildrauschFilmFest (2022, official selection), IDFF Makedox (2022, official selection), Documental IDFF Sofia (2022, official selection), FONOMO Gdynia (2022, official selection), Czech and Slovak film festival Australia (2022), Ji.hlava IDFF (2022, Czech Joy Award)

Media reflections
Vladam Petković in Cineuropa on the film
Margareta Hrůza in Modern Times Review

Image: Kapr Code