Theatre performances staged outside theatres, at the locations that enrich the contents of popular theatre plays with a new context, inspire actors’ performance, and develop or change the topic. Every Live Film is shot in one live take, which penetrates the actors’ intimate space or focuses on the world around them. Everything is “live” in real time – the actors are playing, the camera is running, viewers in the cinema are watching. Everybody is sharing the stories told by Live Film.
The theatres in the Czech Republic have closed again and the concert halls are empty. The government measures in the time of the first pandemic wave of Covid-19 limited live culture rather significantly. But it did not stop it. Culture carried on – on social networks or under the windows within a block of flats. And this was the time when the primary philanthropic project AMERIKÁNKA: WE PLAY FOR MEDICAL STUDENTS was born.
Heaven’s Gate Company staged the theatre performance Amerikánka in the spaces outside the theatre, at the locations that enrich the contents of the popular theatre plays with a new context, inspire actors’ performance, and develop or change the topic. The film crew shot the performances in one live take, in which the camera penetrated actors’ intimate space or focused on the world around them. The film language became part of the essence of live arts.
Further to the support of the PPF Foundation and the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the project has transformed into a unique theatre and cinematographic format Live Film. Nine films and one concert were streamed live on the internet and cinemas in the Czech Republic with the attendance of 40,000 viewers. The bonus Live Film The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep was a Czech Television’s Večerníček to celebrate the birthday of ČT:D.
Live Film Amerikánka: In an Abandoned Sanatorium has become the most successful item in the cinemas on the given day. The project drew media attention from across the Czech Republic and exceeded the reach of 2,000,000 people.
As far as social responsibility is concerned, the viewers of Live Film have supported the Medici na ulici organization and Dobré víly with nearly 500,000 CZK. Film Live has organized many outstanding events, developing the individual potential of children from children’s homes and has contributed to social communication of the issues regarding detention institutes (e.g. 11 pages of Renata Kalenská’s interviews in Deník N).
Film Live is an alternative to the experience of live art, not its reduction. It is a demonstration of live culture’s desire and ability to tell stories following the reality of its viewers’ reality. Live culture and its attitude towards the crisis will be the key initiator of the social approach to the pandemic and its impacts. Live Film is an inspiration and tool for a positive transformation of society.
Live Film – the film worlds
Kaleidoscope (La Putyka) – awakening fairs, among merry-go-rounds, shooting galleries, and haunted castles. The topic of awakening to a new life and joy of performing for the audiences again.
Through the Air (Losers Cirque Company) – the story of Jonathan the Seagull, who falls in love with flying, will be set at the bottom of an abandoned swimming people, in the world of those who are close to him, who feel comfortable on a comfy ground or “touching the bottom”. Jonathan takes off from their world and although he manages to get to the edge of the pool only, this is a “new world” for him. The band accompanying the acrobats and director’s view of the live film will be located on the diving board above the pool to the “god-like” view from above to overlook the events. Seagull’s actions in the limited space mirror the sadness for the fate of excellent Czech architecture in the world of component construction.
Amerikánka (Heaven’s Gate) – a black brutalist monument was placed in the space of an empty concert hall. The arena without seats, limited by black walls with a monument in the middle is a place of commemoration for all children from children’s homes, foster care, or reformatories. The monument is dominated by the heroine played by Tereza Ramba and Eliška Křenková, who overcome their fate in the name of all the children.
Pérák (Vosto5) – Pérák is the only Czech superhero, a mythological character of anti-fascist resistance. The setting of his story in an authentic historical building is a play on reality and mythology in a complex image of the essence of historical experience. Live Film is the expression of live culture’s defiance. The links among the historical building, memorial, Pérák story, and Live Film is an expression of the desire for fun heroism.
Secret Agent (Theatre on the Balustrade) – the production is based on a famous British story located in London at the turn of the centuries. The unique industrial brick architecture of a water tower illustrates an atmosphere similar to that of the peak of the Industrial Revolution and can achieve unique effects in the Live Film thanks to the special spaces. The time that has stopped in the underground merges with the historical story. The story about Russian agent provocateurs and the fatal story of one family brings together our present and London past. Architecture and theatre meet in the new context in the film.
The main media partner is Czech Television.
More information: https://filmnazivo.cz/