Czech Drama About Music and Sexual Abuse

Navigating a familiar subject with delicacy and an eye for emotional detail, Czech writer-director Ondrej Provaznik delivers a subtly powerful adolescent drama with his latest feature, Broken Voices (Sbormistr).

Inspired by the true story of the Bambini di Praga (Children of Prague), a renowned Czech youth chorus whose director was convicted in 2008 of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls, the film follows a rather foreseeable path but does so with plenty of honesty and heart. After premiering in competition at Karlovy Vary, it could echo across more festivals as well as arthouse distributors throughout Europe.

Set in the early 90s, when the Czech Republic was shedding the last vestiges of Communism and gradually opening up to the West, Provaznik’s well-tempered scenario reveals how children born under Soviet rule were willing to do anything to explore the world outside of their homeland. For sisters Karolina (Katerina Falbrova) and Lucie (Maya Kintera), this means getting chosen as A-list singers in a famous choir that’s about to embark on a tour of three major U.S. cities.

The hitch is that their celebrated chorus is run by Macha (Juraj Loj), a pretentious and rock star-like musical director who — whether or not this was intentional on the filmmaker’s part — seems to have “sexual predator” written all over his cummerbunds. That sentiment is soon vindicated when we see Lucie queasily come home one night after crossing paths with Macha at a party, making it clear that some of the choir girls have to pay a high price for getting picked.

At that point, the elder Lucie is the favorite and Karolina is only the upstart. But as the former recedes into the background after her run-in with Vitek, the latter becomes the focal point of a teacher who shrouds his abusive behavior in lots of mansplaining about achieving the perfect pitch. By the time both sisters head with their chorus to New York, Karolina has become the new target of Vitek’s predation. She’s aware of what she’s being subjected to, but too intimidated and overpowered to escape her fate.  

Provaznik tells the story primarily from Karolina’s point of view, which is one of an innocent girl who slowly succumbs to the crushing forces around her. These include her parents, who are bending over backward so their daughters can get chosen; Lucie and the other singers, who resent Karolina for jumping ahead in the line-up and make her pay for it later on; and Vitek, who has obviously been abusing girls for a long time and earmarks Karolina as his next victim.

And then there’s the allure of a choir that offered unheard-of opportunities for young women back then, during a moment that saw the Czech Republic and other former Eastern Bloc countries looking beyond the Iron Curtain. Provaznik hints at this during scenes of the teens dancing or singing along to rock songs, with Vitek accompanying them on his guitar. It’s a perfect image of the euphoria Karolina and the others experienced — a euphoria undercut by the trauma and humiliation many of them would suffer.

Shot in grainy 16mm to better capture the mood of the epoch, Broken Voices keeps its drama grounded in the social and cultural realities of its time. Provaznik coaxes strong performances from the young cast, whether in their chorus rehearsals or behind the scenes. Loj is also memorable as a teacher who abuses his power without any regrets whatsoever, at a time when such abuses mostly went unpunished.

The majority of the drama is set in two captivating locations: a remote ski resort where Vitek sequesters the choir for a two-week boot camp before their big tour, subjecting them to intense practice sessions followed by co-ed visits to the sauna; and an upscale hotel in Manhattan where he eventually makes his move on Karolina. The latter sequence is artfully staged in one fixed shot, with a window giving out onto an apartment whose inhabitants are completely unaware of what’s happening just across the way.

As dark as the film can seem, it’s also filled with moments of harmonic bliss whenever the girls perform. Their voices are not only what carry them out of the Czech Republic toward broader horizons; they help turn this thoughtful docudrama into something more contemplative and sublime. The musical numbers culminate in a scene that shows Karolina bravely, sadly and desperately doing the one thing a girl in her position can do — becoming a solo act of resistance in a world of submission.