Ondřej Provazník on taking inspiration from choir abuse scandal for Broken Voices
Ondřej Provazník is the writer-director of Broken Voices, a new Czech drama that is in the main competition at the ongoing Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The powerful picture follows a 13-year-old girl as she comes under the sway of the conductor of her choir and is inspired by a scandal centred on the head of a Prague girls’ choir, who was jailed on multiple sexual abuse charges. I spoke to Provazník ahead of the world premiere of the film, whose Czech title Sbormistr translates literally as The Choirmaster.
“It was very difficult to convince the Kühn Children’s Choir, because they were afraid of being connected with this old scandal.”
Ondřej, you and I have known each other for almost 20 years but I’ve never asked you, what led you to film in the beginning?
“Actually, when I was in secondary school our math teacher bought a camera for the school.
“There was a kind of audition. He said we should make film crews and everybody should make a short film about our school.
“So we set up a group of three or four guys – and we were the only ones who finished the film. And as a reward, we had the possibility to use the camera.
“And that’s how we started to do short films, just for fun, and that’s how I got to film.
“Then it started to be my dream and step I step I started to very, very slowly [laughs] build up my film career.”
What kind of movies do you typically like as a viewer?
“I like movies that somehow move me, activise me, and I like lots of different genres, lots of different sorts of films.
“I like Hollywood-style films but at the same time I like slow cinema, like Apichatpong Weerasethakul or Carlos Reygadas, these kind of slow and meditative films in which you can somehow slow down and think about different realities and life in the cinema.
“I love those films as well – and I learn a lot from them.”
Your new film Broken Voices will have just had its world premiere by the time this interview goes out. It’s loosely inspired by the case of the Bambini di Praga, this girls’ choir where the choirmaster, Bohumil Kulínský, was found guilty of sexual abusing around two dozen girls. What motivated you to make this film?
“It’s a complex matter. In 2004 when this choirmaster was arrested I had a very specific moment or thing that happened to me.
“It was a couple of months, I would say, after the choirmaster was arrested. I was in a late-night bar and next to me there were a group of young woman who started to call to somebody and after a couple of minutes they started to sing to the mobile phone in a very perfect polyphony.
“From the context of what they told him after I found out that they were singing to this choirmaster Bohumil Kulínský in [remand] prison.
“It was a kind of bizarre, perverse, magic moment [laughs] in which the ambiguity of the whole trial and everything was somehow imprinted.
“I was fascinated by that moment. For a long time I had it somewhere inside me.
“Then in 2018 when the worldwide #MeToo movement broke out I remembered that moment, that memory, and I said, OK, this was a kind of special precursor of this #MeToo movement, a special Czech precursor to that – I think I should make a film out of that.
“This was a kind of special precursor of this #MeToo movement, a special Czech precursor to that.”
“Because there was so much interesting in it – it wasn’t this black and white story like the Harvey Weinstein scandal, because the former choir girls split into two sides: one was defending the choirmaster, the other accused him of many, many dark things, sexual abuse and all those things.
“So, at least at beginning, there was this kind of ambiguity in it, and some controversial things that attracted me.
“Plus there was big potential for the film because there was the audio-visual attraction of it: the music, the highs and lows of the story that go together.
“I thought it could be a very strong film, a very strong story.”
I’m sure you’ve thought about this. I’m not sure you’ll have an answer. But why do you think a certain section of the former choir girls were defending Kulínský? They must have known, to some degree, what he did.
“That was also my question. And I did research interviews with former choir girls from the Bambini di Praga, with victims but also with the women who were not, like, harmed by him.
“It’s difficult for anybody to look back at the formative years of your childhood and say, It was all spoiled, it was all bad.”
“It was a very complex question and one of the reasons that I did the film and that I tried to find out.
“I think the reason is that all those girls, even the victims, from what they told me, had a really, really good time in the choir.
“They went through so many years there, formative years of their teens, and it’s very difficult for anybody, I think, just to look back at the formative years of your childhood and say, It was all spoiled, it was all bad, if it’s somehow connected with your identity, with everything that you also like about yourself, about your childhood.
“It’s very difficult to just say, Oh, it was all dark, it was all bad, let’s forget it.
“It’s not that easy. It’s a very fragile, delicate thing to deal with those things.”
The film centres on two sisters. One is 13, one is 15. Given the subject matter and the fact that the actresses also had to have fantastic voices, could you describe the casting process for Broken Voices?
“One of the most important things for me was that all the music scenes in the film would be as authentic as possible.
“So I tried to find actresses among choirs. We did really large casting in the choirs in the Czech Republic, but then we concentrated on a very professional, great choir: the Kühn Children’s Choir.
“There we did casting among 180 girls or something like that and there I found my main character [the 13-year-old], who was simply great.
“But I found there also most of the girls who are in the film choir.
“So I set up the choir from the Kühn Children’s Choir and that allowed me to film all the scenes without playback, live, with all the authenticity and all the naturalness that I wanted.”
Your lead actress, Kateřina Falbrová, is amazing. But it was her first film. What did you seen in her? And what was the process like of guiding her through her first movie?
“I don’t know. Somehow I knew it from the beginning.
“When she went on the stage during her first casting appearance I said to the DOP who was sitting next to me, Lukáš [Milota], Look at her – that’s her.
“And then step by step, at every next level of the auditions, she just confirmed her talent.
“The biggest thing for her was to accept the whole process of shooting, because it’s a very stressful thing and it’s very demanding for a 13-year-old girl.
“Of course then I found Maya Kintera, who plays her 15-year-old sister, who is also very natural and who had some film experience before.
“I insisted that their parents read the script, that they knew all the consequences and everything that can happen.”
“So I somehow worked with them both and I have to say they were just perfect. They were like professional actresses.
“Kateřina was more or less in the age her character, so she was somehow very much the girl who she performed. So in that way it was quite easy for her.
“And she’s so natural that she doesn’t reflect the equipment, the camera, the operators – on the set she’s always concentrated on her partner and on the situation and she reacts very naturally to everything, which is an ability that most professional actors don’t have.
“It was simply amazing to work with her.”
You worked with a lot of teenage girls on this project. The Bambini di Praga case is notorious. Was it difficult to convince the parents that you had good intentions and all of that kind of thing?
“Actually it wasn’t difficult, but it was tricky. It was very difficult to convince the Kühn Children’s Choir, because they were afraid of their reputation, of being connected with this old scandal.
“So it took me a while – I would say years – to convince them to be part of the project, and I’m very grateful that they did it, eventually.
“But with the girls, they wanted to be in the film.
“But I knew that it was tricky, so I insisted that their parents read the script, the whole script, that they knew all the consequences and everything that can happen, not only during the shooting but especially after the film is released, because you never know how the reactions are going to be – I don’t know it now.
“So they have to be prepared for the different ways that the audience are going to react.
“And I tried to create as safe an environment as possible for them during the shoot. We had an intimacy“It was very difficult to convince the Kühn Children’s Choir, because they were afraid of being connected with this old scandal.”
“It was very difficult to convince the Kühn Children’s Choir, because they were afraid of being connected with this old scandal.”
coordinator, we had a psychologist, we had an acting coach.
“That was the first thing, and of course I tried somehow to get rid of the stress of during the shooting process.
“I tried to have the set as light as possible – which is, of course, very difficult, because a set is always stressful.
“So those things went against each other: the production and the lightness or the good mood on the set.
“But somehow it worked.”
Was it hard to write the character of the choirmaster? He has to be charismatic, I guess – otherwise it doesn’t make sense that he would be able to do what he did.
“Actually it was the most difficult part for me as a scriptwriter to write.
“But he’s not the main character of the film, so he doesn’t change a lot during the film.
“Maybe just the viewer, the audience, step by step discovers the reality of his character, what kind of manipulative – and at the same time charismatic – figure he is.
“I connected this feeling also very much with the appearance of the actor who plays this role, who is Juraj Loj.
“I wanted from the beginning that the actor would be a charismatic and attractive man, because I didn’t have a mini-series in which I could develop the character for hours.
“I just had this 90-minute story and I needed him to be as dominant, as good-looking and as attractive as possible from the beginning.
“Then we worked with Juraj on his character very much. He had trained in conducting for half a year before the shooting started, because I knew that the audience had to believe that the character is a real musician – and I think we succeeded.
“Then on the set we had a real choirmaster [from the Kühn Children’s Choir], who helped him with the scenes and who also helped us to shoot all the music scenes without playback.”
I also read that Juraj Loj himself had studied violin. Did you also learn music? Because it struck me watching the film that you must have understood music to even approach this film.
“Yes. I played clarinet when I was a little kid, and then guitar, so music means very much to me.
“And I know this environment. It was kind of coming back to my own teens. I know very much about that – I played in an orchestra.
“It was kind of coming back to my own teens – I played in an orchestra.”
“So it was a familiar experience for me to write the script – and then to be on the set with all the musicians. It was just a joy.
“Although the story is dark, the music gives it a kind of contrast of beauty and I wanted to imprint this contrast in the film.”
It’s partly s“I insisted that their parents read the script, that they knew all the consequences and everything that can happen.”et in New York. What did your producer say when he realised that part of your plan was to take the whole operation to the Big Apple?
“Actually, he agreed. Because he knew it was an important part of the story.
“I wanted the choir to go to some really perfect place for the tour, a place that would be a kind of highlight also for the contemporary audience.
“Because in 1992 we would have been happy to go to Vienna or to Munich or to Paris, we would be completely happy, but for the contemporary audience, for contemporary teenagers, it’s not as huge.
“So I thought America, New York, is something that really rules somehow.
“So we knew from the beginning that we wanted to go there. But you can dream about something like that, but to make it happen [laughs] is a different story.
“At the beginning we thought that we would shoot these New York scenes in studios in Sofia. Then we considered Toronto, but we never found so many locations there to be cover all the scenes.
“So at the end of the day we just went for location scouting and for recce to New York and, long story short, we prepared four shooting days for half a year.”
But given that you set the film in the early 1990s and New York has changed a lot since that time, how difficult was it to get the kinds of backgrounds that you needed?
“Actually we found some streets and some spots that worked for us.
“Of course there are some CGI moments in the film.
“And then it’s true that with certain scenes there was only a very short time when we could shoot them – a very limited portion of time and space in which we could shoot the scenes.
“It was very difficult to prepare it and to make it happen. And it was a combination of very, very, very concentrated preparation and improvisation.”
I always imagined it would be virtually impossible for a relatively small film to shoot in New York. How did you get permits? Or how for example did you get to shoot on the Subway?
“That’s the thing, you’re just stepping into a completely new environment. So the things that we thought would be completely impossible were possible, in the end.
“We had a road closure in Greenwich Village and it wasn’t that expensive.”
“Like we had a road closure in Greenwich Village and it wasn’t that expensive. It was almost the same expensive like here in Vršovice, where we are sitting now. So it was surprising.
“Of course we had an American service production company that helped us with those things.
“But other things were just incredibly complicated.
“Yes, we shot in the streets, we shot on the metro, and the truth is they didn’t want us to do the shoots because the police on the New York metro are very much afraid of young guys who are riding on the trains and doing this [laughs] suicidal hobby.
“So there are cameras everywhere and everything is guarded by cameras and by the police.
“But in the end they let us do one or two shots and we just succeeded.
“It was kind of a risk, but I prepared the whole scene, the whole shots, one day before as a rehearsal with all the crew, without a camera.
“And then we did it live. We had one or two shots and we did it. So that was it.
“It’s so difficult to get your film into any good festival and Karlovy Vary is a great festival.”
“But of course there was a big risk in it and big courage from all the crew and from all the actors.
“It was an adventure but I like adventure. I came from the documentary environment so I’m not afraid of doing those things and my DOP Lukáš Milota as well.
“So we just wanted to do it and we did it.”
After seven or eight years of work the film is finally coming out. It has just had its world premiere at Karlovy Vary. What does it mean for you that the film is in the main competition at Karlovy Vary?
“I think it’s amazing. I think it’s just a great start for a Czech movie, to have the possibility to start our film at an A category film festival is amazing.
“The competition now is so strong, it’s so difficult to get your film into any good festival and Karlovy Vary is a great festival.
Full disclosure: Ian Willoughby did the English subtitles for the film Broken Voices.“So I very much hope that it will help not only the Czech distribution but for sure also the European or worldwide distribution.
“Even now we already have a sales agent and all those things – and I think it will help us a lot.”
Full disclosure: Ian Willoughby did the English subtitles for the film Broken Voices.
