RIIFF, which runs from Aug. 4 to Aug. 9, is free and online this year due to COVID19.
The Art of Dissent explores the power of artistic engagement in Czechoslovakia before and after the 1968 Soviet-led invasion. The documentary’s main protagonists – Václav Havel, banned singer Marta Kubišová, and the underground rock group The Plastic People of the Universe – became the most recognizable dissidents during the 1970s and 1980s. Havel fused literary, rock ’n’ roll, political, and philosophical worlds into a hybrid network that eventually toppled the totalitarian regime during the Velvet Revolution of 1989.
Click here to watch the trailer.
For more information, email James Dean Le Sueur at [email protected].