Love, tolerance and creative freedom aren't just for fairy tales

Award-winning film, The Art of Dissent celebrates the resilience and power of artistic engagement in Czechoslovakia after the 1968 Soviet-led invasion. The documentary’s main protagonists – Václav Havel, band singer Marta Kubišová, and the underground rock group the Plastic People of the Universe (PPU) – became the most recognizable dissidents during the 1970-80s. Havel bridged the disparate clusters of individuals and fused the literary, musical, political, and philosophical nonviolent elements into a hybrid network that eventually toppled the totalitarian regime in 1989. The movie combines rare archival footage with interviews with key dissidents filmed over three years in the Czech Republic, England, and the United States. The film speaks to our contemporary political malaise by underscoring the resolve and courage of dissidents who strove to rebuild a battered civil society with artistry, tolerance, and truth.

Event timings:

4.30pm- Pre-film talk with Film Director, James Le Sueur and Professor Timothy Garton Ash

5.00pm – 6.45pm – Film showing (1.45 hours)

Please book to attend: The Art of Dissent Film Screening

Watch the trailer here:

Download The Art of Dissent film poster.

...the resistance was down but not out. An underground army of writers, academics, musicians, and other intellectuals sustained it, chief among them the internationally renowned playwright Václav Havel.

- The Boston Globe

Cast
Timothy Garton Ash
Jacques Rupnik
Tomáš Halík
Eda Kriseová
Michael Zantovsky
Paul Wilson

Director
James Dean Le Sueur

Producers
David Hanzal
Vít Belohradský
Arpi Siyahian
Brad Roth
James Le Sueur
Mariana Čapková
Jakub Mahler