In their documentary Citizen Havel Is Rolling Barrels, the filmmakers Jan Novak and Adam Novak go back into the past in order to render the genesis of Vaclav Havel’s famous one-act play Audience. At the same time, they introduce the viewer to the paradoxes of the odd world of the Czechoslovak “normalization” period. In 1974, Václav Havel was a playwright in danger of being declared a “social parasite” by the neo-Stalinist regime of Gustav Husák. His plays had been banned and, in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic of that time, you could go to prison if your Citizen Identification passport lacked a stamp in the employment box. Havel solved the problem by finding a job as a brewery hand. For nearly a year, he rolled barrels in the basement of a regional brewery in Trutnov, and the experience profoundly changed his writing. The documentary shows the world of the brewery as well as Havel’s former coworkers who had inspired Audience. It also maps out the circumstances of a clandestine recording of the play, featuring Havel and Pavel Landovsky, which quickly resonated through all of society and bore strange fruit – for example, the biggest Czech film star in those days, Jirina Bohdalova, had a doctor friend of hers cut her lip so that she would not have to denounce Havel on television... The film also presents an abridged version of the play itself in the form of a collage woven from archival strands, the famous audio rendering of the piece by Havel and Landovsky, photographs and various performances of the Audience from around the world.

Writer / Jan Novák    DoP / Adam Novák    Editor / Jan Novák , Adam Novák    Sound / Adam Novák

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