Kolya, Oscar-nominated Czech director Jan Sverak's fourth feature, begins during the Velvet Revolution of November 1989, when the ageing bachelor Frantisek Louka (Zdenek Sverak, Jan's father), a cellist with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, verbally abuses a Communist Bureaucrat. Not only does his outburst leave him barred from leaving the country, it puts an end to his successful career.
Reduced to playing at funerals in the city crematorium, he begins to dream. The object of desire is a fibreglass East German Trabant (a car that symbolises the Communist Era). Short of money, he takes the advice of a friendly gravedigger and accepts an offer to marry a young Russian woman who desperately needs Czech papers in return for money.
His feelings of elation, having acquired a second-hand Trabant, dissipate when his young Russian 'wife' suddenly emigrates to Germany. To make matters worse, her five-year-old son Kolya (Andrej Chalimon) is deposited on his doorstep when the boy's grandmother is taken ill.
Through a struggle for understanding (neither speaks the other's language) and coping with feelings of initial mistrust and resentment, the two stranded figures begin to develop a warm, moving relationship.
Neither is prepared for the shattering arrival of Kolya's mother, who returns after the Velvet Revolution and demands not only a divorce but her son back. When asked whether or not the film has a happy ending, director Jan Sveral replies: 'Basically, yes, but not the kind people ima-gine. It is sad, but there is something happy about it too.'
Kolya has been a phenomenal box-office success in the Czech Republic, and Miramax - who picked up international rights - will be hoping for the kind of international crossover success achieved by such films as Como agua para chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate) and Il postino (The Postman).
Donna Wasserstein
Prod co: Portobello Pictures, Biograf, Jan Sverak
Prod: Eric Abraham, Jan Sverak
Dir: Jan Sverak
Scr: Zdenek Sverak, based on an idea by Pavel Taussig
Ph: Vladimir Smutny
Prod des: Milos Kohout
Cos: Katerina Holla
Music: Ondrej Soukup
Ed: Alois Fisarek
Cast: Zdenek Sverak, Andrej Chalimon, Libuse Safrankova, Ondrej Vetchy
Running time: 105 mins
International sales: Pandora Cinema SA, Portobello Pictures Ltd
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