AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE

Czardas of Two Hearts, In the Slovak Valleys and I Love You are just some of the hits which turned pop singer Karol Duchoň into a household name more than four decades ago. At a time when the young generation is rediscovering the legacy of the ‘Czechoslovak Tom Jones’ outside the context of his heyday, Peter Bebjak (The Line, Nineties) presents a stirring portrait proving that the concepts ‘auteur cinema’ and big audience can coexist in a single, highly appealing endeavour. The film version of Duchoň’s dramatic fate relies on the stage play by Jiří Havelka and Róbert Mankovecký The Earth Remembers (Zem pamätá) and preserves the way in which it looks back at the Normalisation era, without rash judgement, yet with subtle irony.

“Slovak filmmaker Peter Bebjak has built a versatile directorial career straddling the line between mainstream and arthouse cinema.” — Martin Kudláč, Cineuropa