Broken Voices

Set in the early 1990s, between newfound freedom and the lingering restrictions of the former Czechoslovakia, »Broken Voices« tells the story of 13-year-old Karolina, who, in a strictly run and prestigious girls’ choir, draws both the attention of the conductor and the jealousy of her peers with her talent. At times, a touch of »The Virgin Suicides« drifts through this delicately told coming-of-age drama, as the girls in their costumes move carefully, always slightly detached, through the landscapes of new liberty – still uncertain and untested, much like their first stirrings of interest in the opposite sex. The charismatic conductor, who selects the best singers for a performance in New York, becomes the object of everyone’s fantasies – a symbol of longing for both a country and its young girls, all on their journey toward adulthood.