Director Ondřej Provazník: I am ready to defend the Choirmaster

I approach it humbly, at home the film has different connotations and is much more directly related to the viewers who experienced the situation or to the real victims of the case. So the debate is more controversial, more heated, and I respect it.

When I make a film, I try to reach its most general validity, and at foreign festivals I feel that the audience perceives it more as I thought and made it. They are not burdened by confrontation. But that is the reality and one has to reckon with it and live with it.

The journey of our film is not over, the debates will continue, I am ready for them and I am ready to defend the Choirmaster. I absolutely stand by it, even in light of the mistakes we made in the process of its creation. The debate is necessary and important, however painful and uncomfortable it may be for many people.

Unfortunately, it is set up in such a way that one or the other side must win. But it’s not like that! I’d be happy if there was a conciliatory position for the film to talk about what it’s supposed to talk about.

About manipulation and perhaps also about how to prevent such situations. Although I made it as a work of art, I found out from many projections and reactions of psychotherapists and others that even what I would not believe as an old skeptic, has a certain healing ability for victims of sexual violence.

And a lot of young people are accepting it, which is extremely gratifying for me, because it can be seen that I am expressing myself on a current topic. I would like the debate to be about that as well, not just around retraumatization. But I understand that this is an important topic that the film has brought up on many platforms.

That’s a complicated question. The social discourse has shifted a lot regarding what a filmmaker can and cannot do. I was really trying to make a film that was inspired by reality and make it so that it was clearly on the side of the victims. But at the same time it meets the criteria of a work of art, so that what I want to say in it is multi-layered, it was not an agitation.

In that, of course, I need some freedom of expression. And I feel that from the number of sources I’ve talked to, some are more critical of it, but they see it as a model report. Unfortunately, with one of those victims, who was not even my source, there was an unfortunate communication that I am terribly sorry for.

I feel like if we went back to the way we communicate we could understand each other. All of this is anger, the terrible effect of social media that amplifies hatred. I find myself in a situation where people I normally talk to are suddenly writing petitions against me and our film.

Why don’t they call me and talk? Why is there no dialogue between people, but everything is posted as declarations, manifestos on Facebook without talking to each other? Unfortunately, this seems characteristic of that company and painful for me. I’m terribly sorry.

The lawsuit has been filed, but we are not yet familiar with its content. We tried to reconcile the whole matter, but during the negotiations other demands were raised which were already unacceptable for us and our co-producers.

One of the main ones is that the film should not be broadcast by Czech Television, which would completely kill its meaning. We cannot agree with that. And the requirement of financial fulfillment of 10 million crowns also seems absurd to us.

But as heated as it is, I am convinced that the trial will not bring any good. It’s just another re-traumatizing element, and the last thing we want to do is put one victim on trial when our film is clearly on the side of all the victims. We’re sorry, it’s terrible, but unfortunately it’s finally gotten to the stage where we’re going to have to fight back.