L'Étrange Festival - XXIInd edition - September 7 - 18 2016

L'Étrange Musique - Jaz Coleman / Spoken word, The great transformation

L'Étrange Festival 2016 is thrilled to announce the Palmarès for its 22nd edition.

Year of the Devil

Rok dábla - 2002 - Color - 88 mn - Original version with English subtitles - Czech Republic - Mockumentary
Direction : Petr Zelenka. Production : Pavel Strnad. Screenplay : Petr Zelenka. Photography : Miro Gábor, David Charap. Music by : Jaromír Nohavica, Čechomor, Karel Holas. With : Jaromír Nohavica, Karel Plíhal, František Černý
French premiere.

Documentary filmmaker Jan Prent meets Czech folk singer Jaromir Naohavica during an AA meeting. He decides to follow the star as he tries to do his comeback, teaming up with guitar player Plíhal Karel and band Čechomor, as he is harrased by Jaz Coleman himself.

All sliders to boost! A cult movie in Czechoslovakia, Year of the devil gathers real stars of the local music scene in a delirious prank similar to This is Spinal Tap!; a mockumentary which happily busts the music world while introducing a supernatural tone, or even more dramatic and intimate elements. Guest-starring the leader of Killing Joke.

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Thursday 15 September 2016 - 21:45 - Showroom 100 - Presented by Jaz Coleman

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Jaz Coleman

When I moved to the Czech Republic in 2001, a folk violinist knocked on my door at the conductor’s apartment in Obecni Dum and asked me to write a concerto for Czech folk group and orchestra. The interesting thing was this violinist had a hippie friend who asked whether it was ok to film and I said I didn’t mind. The incredible thing was, the project went ahead and I ended up conducting the chamber orchestra of the Czech Philharmonic with this folk group. In a nutshell, we went on to do a record that went 15 times platinum, won 3 Grammies and the band went on to play stadiums in a short period of time. The hippie turned out to be Czech Republic’s experimental film director Petr Zelenka who cut his hair short one day and finally introduced himself, explaining the concept of “no actors”. I agreed to participate and Zelenka would invite me to different occasions, whereupon I would walk straight into a stage set and meet someone. The genius of this system meant that the director had to keep filming because essentially, the ending wrote itself. Year of the Devil won the Crystal globe at Carlsbad International Film Festival and remains one of Czech Republic’s top 10 movies of all time. Moreover, it inspired me to repeat the process which I have done with Shaun Pettigrew in The Death and Resurrection Show, which I am happy to say is being screened at the festival.