Havel

Prague, 1968. Between theatre, parties, and political awakening, everything seems possiblefor the young playwright Václav Havel. But the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops ends the dream of the Prague Spring – and changes Havel's life forever. The celebrated author becomes a banned writer, the unconventional intellectual one of Eastern Europe's most important dissidents. HAVEL tells the story of a man who constantly has to choose between personal happiness, artistic freedom, and political responsibility. Prison, surveillance, and moral turmoil become milestones on a path that ultimately leads to the Velvet Revolution and the leadership of a new democratic state. Director Slávek Horák stages this extraordinary biography with great stylistic flair, connecting the different decades through shifting cinematic aesthetics – from the Czechoslovak New Wave to the documentary look of the revolutionary era. A film about civil courage, art as resistance, and the astonishing strength of a man who never wanted to be a hero and, precisely because of that, became one.