The event is part of the project Democracy and Human Rights: Lessons from the Past for the Current Czech Foreign Policy, organized by the Embassy of the Czech Republic from January through June 2011.

R.S.V.P. to czech_events@yahoo.comby February 2, 2011

Additional questions: 202-274-9108, e-mail: jana_racova@mzv.cz

Event Location: Embassy of the Czech Republic, 3900 Spring of Freedom St, NW, Washington, DC 20008

About the film The Immortal Balladeer of Prague

This 62-minute documentary captures the search of the Czech-American journalist, Thomas Hasler from Baltimore, for his famous father Karel Hasler, the legend of Czech music, theatre and cinema. In 2006, Thomas visits the Czech Republic to trace the life of the father he never met.

Story and production: Thomas Hasler, Josef Lustig, Arnost Lustig, Marek Jicha

Directors: Josef Lustig and Marek Jicha

 

About Karel Hasler

Karel Hasler was an artist of the highest order. For over ten years, he was a member of Prague’s National Theatre. He also managed the Havel family-owned Lucerna Cabaret, wrote plays, operettas and acted in vaudevilles and a variety of shows. His seditious songs incited the Czechs to rebel against Austria-Hungary’s imperial rule, and, after the birth of the Czechoslovak Republic, Hasler’s songs targeted those who betrayed the democratic ideal. With the advent of the talkies, Hasler became a prominent film music composer, director, screenwriter and actor. After the 1939 German occupation of Bohemia and Moravia, Karel Hasler, a member of the underground movement, was arrested by the Gestapo in 1941, and brutally murdered in the Mauthausen concentration camp. The SS poured ice-cold water over him and left him outside in December frost to freeze into an ice statue. Through Hasler’s songs, archival footage and rare witnesses, the documentary reveals Hasler to be a grand persona of 20th century Czech history. By murdering Karel Hasler, the German Nazis killed Czech culture for the six years of the occupation. By filming Hasler’s life and work, the documentary attempts to resurrect the immortal balladeer.

 

Czech Republic and Human Rights

Based on her own historic experience, the Czech Republic holds human rights and democracy very dear. Calling upon the international community to follow suit, the Czech Republic is a staunch advocate of respect for human rights and democracy in various places in the world where these are under threat. The numerous activities in this field, where the Czech Republic is involved, are portrayed in the Embassy´s project “Democracy and Human Rights: Lessons from the Past for the Current Czech Foreign Policy.”  The various events put together within this project include exhibitions, conferences, documentary and feature film screenings, and lectures focusing namely on the country’s totalitarian past, its current human-rights-promotion priorities and, topically, on the rights of women and children. 

Upcoming events:

February 24, 7 pm         Exhibition opening: The Gulag Collection

February 25, 10–4 pm   Historical conference: Political Prisoners in Totalitarian Regimes

March 3, 7 pm               Documentary screening: Tomorrow There Will Be..

March 24, 7 pm             Project presentation and discussion: Recording Voices and Documenting Memories: The NCSML’sOral History Project