Bára - Diary of a Rockstar

synopsis

This three-part version of the time-lapse documentary of the same name follows the singer Bára Basiková through five decades of her life and the history of Czech pop music. It captures her musical beginnings in the bands Stromboli and Precedens, her failed marriages, and her gruelling struggle to balance raising her children with her career. A combination of archive footage, home videos, concert performances and everyday observations provides a sober account of personal failures, successes and ageing under the public eye. Thanks to the protagonist’s openness, this portrait of a pop star evolves into a more general reflection on loneliness, vulnerability and the eternal search for a stable anchor in a changing world.

Each of the three episodes in this series runs for 47 minutes.

“From the outset, I defined it as a film about a woman and a mother who also happens to be a singer.” — Helena Třeštíková, dok.revue.

biography

Helena Třeštíková (1949) is a Czech documentary filmmaker and lecturer at FAMU. She specialises in the time-lapse method and the long-term documentation of the lives of both ordinary people and celebrities. She has won numerous awards, including the European Film Award, for her documentaries such as Marriage Stories (1987), Katka (2009) and René (2008).

film details

director:	Helena Třeštíková
producer:	Kateřina Černá, Pavel Strnad, Alena Müllerová
photography:	David Cysař
editing:	Adéla Špaljová
sound:	Petr Šoltys