Creative Documentary: Ceska Rapublika

Sun 09 May, 8 pm
Almaz Hotel

Almaz proudly presents “Ceska Rapublika” as the first film in our screening series.

The golden age of hip-hop is dead, yet it is now part of the official culture in western countries. Urban styles, underground music and the freedom it brought with it has changed into MTV culture, commercial music and short-lived artists.

But what happens in countries that have just recently opened to hip-hop? A young generation that has grown up with the internet and satellite television has chosen from the treasures of this well-established culture, and have interpreted them in their own ways. In Czech Republic hip-hop has now become popular, especially for kids from the gray, underprivileged outskirts. They found in it a means of expression to reflect, in their own words, the difficulties of their own lives, the minor and major trifling business of daily life, as well as their dissatisfaction and anger that comes with the contradictions of a changing society.

These are scenes that come from Prague and its outskirts, not Los Angeles. No ghettos, no gang wars, no guns or racial issues. The entire scope of the art form, when transplanted to a place as remote from the originating point, is different.Of course it cannot be compared directly with the culture that has come from the violent streets of the US. Still, you can see an incipient struggle, through language, for a search for identity…

The documentary is in czech with english subtitles. Screening at Almaz, last floor (no elevator). If you can, please bring your pillows, or rug, or couch…

The Almaz Collective is an association of creatives sharing video, photography, design, painting, writing and other skills in a free and independent way. They are based in Hanoi, Vietnam.