Prague - Six years after the release of "Smradi" ("The Brats" in UK) about a Czech family and their adopted Roma children, director Zdeněk Tyc has finished his fifth feature film, which again explores the life of Czech Roma.
His newest film "El Paso" tells of the struggle of a Romani mother of seven with authorities.
Tyc's screenplay was inspired by a true story of a woman from Brno. "She was determined at all costs to raise her seven children herself and not let them be taken away to the orphanage," Tyc describes the set-up of the story, which then becomes more complicated with debts to the city piling up for the protagonist.
The heroine, Věra, is being helped in her predicament by a young and ambitious lawyer and a probation guardian, played by real-life partners Linda Rybová and David Prachař.
Tyc gave the leading role to the singer of the Roma funk band Gulo Čar, Irena Horváthová. Igor Chmela, Vladimír Javorský and Leoš Noha also star in the film.
Normal life
Yet, Tyc doesn't want his new work to be considered just as a film about Roma. On the contrary, he wants his viewers to stop looking at Věra and her children as a Roma family, as something different.
"A Roma family also wants to have a normal life, to be independent and they don't all have to end up on the streets. But I don't want to be moralistic! Don't look for ideology here."
"El Paso" is being produced by Ondřej Trojan, who's also behind films by director Jan Hřebejk and script writer Petr Jarchovský, authors of a number of successful films, i.e. Pelíšky (Cosy Dens, 1999) or Musíme si pomáhat (Divided We Fall, 2000), which was nominated for Oscar.
Lots of footage
The shooting for Tyc's film is done and the reels are now in the cutting room, where they'll stay until mid-September.
"There is a lot of material, since the film was shot with two cameras simultaneously," explains Naďa Machková, the film's spokeswoman.
The presence of six child actors on the set called for some unusual decisions. "In order to get them to be most authentic, the creators had to distract [the young actors], engage them otherwise and then capture those moments," Machková explains.
Brats and the rest
Zdeněk Tyc began his career in 1989 with a film called "Vojtěch, řečený sirotek" (Vojtěch Called the Orphan), followed by Žiletky (Razorblades) in 1994, a comedy "UŽ" ("Seize the Day" in US distribution), a year later and "Smradi" in 2002. "El Paso" should hit the theaters January 20.
Tyc's previous feature film "Smradi" was based on an autobiographical screenplay by Czech writer Tereza Boučková about parents raising two adopted Roma boys. Boučková and Tyc were also supposed to make a film based on her newest screenplay "Zemský ráj to napohled" (Behold, Heaven on Earth), which won the Sazka prize (Cena Sazky) for the best unrealized screenplay. This has not happened yet.
Boučková described the tribulations connected with the negotiations over the filming in a recently published book Rok kohouta (Year of the rooster). The title of the book is a pun, as Boučková´s father is a respected playwright, poet and communist-turned dissident Pavel Kohout.
It seems the film will finally appear under the direction of Irena Pavlásková, produced by Viktor Schwarcz. The shooting will begin this November with cameraman Diviš Marek, who's been awarded a Český lev prize - the Czech equivalent of the Oscar.
