IL BOEMO

By Petr VACLAV

DUGONG FILMS - as PROD

Historical - Completed 2020


Festivals
& Awards

San Sebastian FF 2022
Official selection
    • Year of production
    • 2020
    • Genres
    • Historical, Drama, Biography
    • Countries
    • CZECH REPUBLIC, ITALY
    • Languages
    • ITALIAN
    • Budget
    • 3 - 5 M$
    • Duration
    • 110 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Petr VACLAV
    • Writer(s)
    • Petr VACLAV
    • Producer(s)
    • Jan MACOLA (MIMESIS FILM), Marco ALESSI (DUGONG FILMS), Marek URBAN (SENTIMENTALFILM)
    • Synopsis
    • IL BOEMO tells the story of a Czech miller who achieves international fame as the most prolific composer of opera seria in Italy of his day. His career is breathtakingly frenetic, astonishingly improbable,
      and very short: only 13 years of activity. Our film covers this period and the crucial time preceding his meteoric rise to celebrity. We are drawn into the world of an extraordinarily talented man who pursues his dreams by tapping into the inner strength of his inextinguishable need to create. We will see
      his passions and exploits as well as his relationships with powerful patrons, politicians and theatrical figures who decide his artistic fate. IL BOEMO is a story demonstrating that talent and diligence alone do not lead to success without polished social skills and a good dose of luck.
      The narrative technique and Mysliveček’s unforgettable music promise to provide audiences with
      a completely fresh and unique cinematic experience, just as Miloš Forman’s Amadeus did decades ago. The lighting, set design, and intricately detailed costumes recall the ravishing effects
      of Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon.
      The script faithfully describes events that have been carefully recorded in eighteenth-century documents. We have at our disposal the complete surviving correspondence of the composer, besides press notices, financial accounts, and some scintillating letters of the Mozart family. In the music archives of Europe, we have located a great deal of music by Mysliveček that has never been performed since his
      time — and we have recorded it with the best European musicians. This music helps us to understand Mysliveček’s soul more than anything else. The rest is interpretation. We re-vitalize the spirit
      of the eighteenth century with vivid depictions of its society and social order.
      Josef and his story — it cannot be otherwise — become fiction.
      Our Prague-born artist found his professional success not only in Italy from Naples to Venice and Turin to Rome. During the dark days when his consuming illness signaled the beginning of his long descent into obscurity and death, he achieved a huge success in Munich. Mysliveček’s fate helps us to understand the cultural interconnections of Europe, its disparate unity and our common roots — the heritage from which all of us can draw inspiration. Josef’s story helps us understand who we are,
      how we deal with our past, and what kind of feelings and values we
      should nurture in the future that awaits us.