Czech TV to air documentary on Saudek brothers

Czech television will be presenting a new documentary on December 27th called "The Saudek Brothers", telling the story of Jan and Karel, two famous but controversial Czech artists. The documentary's director Petr Kanka, portrays the two brothers, born as twins in 1935, with the aim of revealing what is hidden behind the mask of rebels that the public usually gets to see. The first part of the documentary is devoted to Karel, painter and illustrator, who talks about his views on art, comics, the relationship to his wife and problems with alcohol. His more extrovert brother Jan, who is presented in the second half, talks about his photography which often celebrates the beauty of the naked human body. The documentary deals with the complex relationship of the two brothers as well as with the complicated personality of each of them. At the documentary's press showing on Thursday, Jan Saudek told Dita Asiedu what he thought about the end product:

"Well, I guess it was professionally made and the only mistake was that they didn't choose anyone else for my part - like in 'The Wall' from Pink Floyd, for example, where Mr Roger Waters was critical enough, so he let a real actor take his part. But it's done this way and I don't know what will happen to the movie. Maybe it will go all over the world, aired in different countries, or maybe it will stay forgotten here in this small country which I consider to be the 'Heart of Europe."

Do you think that it said a little too much about you and your brother?

"Well, I try to be as truthful as I can. Of course, I didn't want to exhibit myself naked to the public but many people in this country are lying all the time and now that I am old I can recognise the lie immediately and I can't stand it, so I said to myself that the time has come to tell the truth so as long as I cannot tell anything about anyone and I only know myself, I try to tell the whole truth about the own life."

When you watched the documentary, did you see something in your brother and his life that you did not realise or didn't know about before?

"I realised that my brother in a very strange sense of the word is happy - in his house, with his family, he probably loves his wife and children whilst I am a much more suspicious guy, complicated and I have got all the reasons to be happy but I am extremely unhappy."

Tune into next week's ARTS to hear more about the Saudek brothers' work, their life, and the documentary.