The director found out about the main character by coincidence. “A friend of mine told me about Kapr's old flat in Prague where his legacy was being stored. She asked me to digitalise his films, and step by step, I got to know him. His films are really fascinating because they look like small fiction sketches,” Lucie Králová explained in a statement.
The subtitle of the film is Life as a Composition, because Kapr composed not only his music, but also his life. He is the author of his own story, which he filmed at the same time, hence the film "posthumously" soundtracks his silent films with his own music.
“I asked myself how I could talk about his life using a new perspective. I didn't want to make a historical film with a closed message. I wanted to ask what is still important today about Kapr. I was inspired by the Czech opera director Jiří Adámek, who doesn't make classical opera, but new opera. He uses opera principles to deal with contemporary issues and thus he is able to attract a younger audience,” Králová added.
The film is a Czech/Slovak coproduction, produced by DOCUfilm Praha and Mindset Pictures in coproduction with the Czech Television, VIRUSfilm and MagicLab.
The project has been supported the by the Czech Film Fund with 40,890 EUR / 1 m CZK, the South Moravian Film Fund with 12,267 EUR / 300,000 CZK, and the Slovak Audiovisual Fund with 30,000 EUR.
The budget was approximately 170,000 EUR / 4,193,000 CZK, producer Andrea Shaffer from Mindset Pictures told FNE.
The project is an IMZ Avant Première pitch winner and it also participated in the work-in-progress ParisDoc Cinereél as well as dok.incubator.
Kapr Code had its international premiere at Vision du Réel in April 2022, in the Burning Lights section. It also screened in the main competition at Filmfest München in May 2022 and won the competition’s Best Film Award at the DocMusic Krakow.
The theatrical domestic release is in negotiations.
Lightdox is handling the sales.
Production Information:
Producers:
DOCUfilm Praha (Czech Republic)
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Mindset Pictures (Czech Republic)
Andrea Shaffer: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Coproducers:
Czech Television (Czech Republic)
VIRUSfilm (Slovakia)
MagicLab (Czech Republic)
Credits:
Director: Lucie Králová
Libretto: Jiří Austerlitz / Adámek
DoP: Tomáš Stanek ASK, Adam Ol'ha, Petr Příkaský, Jakub Halousek, Martin Řezníček
Editor: Adam Brothánek
Music: Petra Šuško
Choir conductor: Petr Fiala - Czech Philharmonic Choir Brno
