Dying for Beginners / The Key of Silence

Bára Kopecká, Marek Bouda / Czech Republic / 2017 / World Premiere / 58 min.

synopsis

The joint title Dying for beginners brings together two short films that the directors shot together “in hospices, maternity wards, trains, and elsewhere.” They are based on interviews with the same protagonists and about similar subjects, but always as seen from a different angle. The first film, Marek Bouda’s The key of silence explores music and its relationship to old age and death. For instance, it asks what music we can hear in heaven or what music to play after our passing. In Dying for beginners, Bára Kopecká looks at the taboo subject of death in crematoria, among the dying, or in the maternity ward.

“I was interested primarily in how music is reflected in the face of the listener when he is moved by it. And silence – the counterpoint to music, a pause in the composition, the end of life... the silence that remains after we are gone...” B. Kopecká

biography

Bára Kopecká (1970) studied editing at FAMU and also works as an editor. Her directorial debut was the documentary DK (2013, Ji.hlava IDFF 2013) about her husband, the architect David Kopecký, which she made four years after his death. Marek Bouda (1967) is an experienced director of television documentaries (e.g., Předčasná úmrtí, 2001–2002). Both directors also worked on episodes of the documentary cycle Doctors (2017).

more about film

director:	Bára Kopecká, Marek Bouda
producer:	Bára Kopecká, Petr Kubica
script:	Bára Kopecká, Marek Bouda
photography:	Marek Bouda
editing:	Nicole Hálová
sound:	Jaroslav Fryš, Bára Kopecká