Gentle Hrabal

synopsis

The discovery of previously unknown recordings of Hrabal's lectures provides a rare, intimate insight into the author's world. The documentary film The Gentle Hrabal allows his authentic voice to be heard again after almost fifty years. Here, Hrabal speaks to students at his cottage in Kersko, and at other times to parishioners at the Protestant rectory in Libice. These audio recordings are combined in the film with exclusive interviews, primarily with Hrabal's muse Dubenka, foreign Czech studies scholars, and Hrabal's friends. Theatre and visual arts, the vanished landscape of Libeň, and a "mass" over a bale of old paper form a vivid collage that places Hrabal's stories about the gems of everyday life, love, and the courage to face the end in direct dialogue with the present day. The film does not slip into pathos, transforming harshness into poetry, not diminishing the high and elevating the low. An intimate, playful portrait of a world-renowned author who speaks to the younger generation and, after watching the film, tempts them to open his books.

biography

Director and screenwriter Jakub Motejzík graduated from the Film School in Zlín and then studied feature film directing at FAMU. In recent years, he has focused on documentaries linking memory, literature, and the present. Něžný Hrabal (2024) presents the author's rediscovered recordings. Hrabalova chata (2023) maps the transformation of the Kerská chata cottage into a house museum. Sokolové pro Ukrajinu (2023) follows the restoration of Sokol in Malyn, Ukraine. He has been filming a long-term time-lapse documentary about the Volhynian Czechs. He shot Zlínský klenot (2019) for Czech Television.

film details

director:	Jakub Motejzík
producer:	Alena Müllerová
script:	Jakub Motejzík
photography:	Tomáš Svoboda, Petr Vejslík, Petr Příkaský, Jan Horáček
editing:	Zdeněk Marek
music:	Karel Havlíček
sound:	Martin Stýblo, Ladislav Greiner
script dramaturgy:	Zuzana Trávníčková

contact

Tomáš Karmazín / Česká televize
tomas.karmazin@ceskatelevize.cz