The Art of Dissent (2021)
"The Art of Dissent" celebrates the resilience and power of artistic engagement in Czechoslovakia before and after the 1968 Soviet-led invasion. The documentary's main protagonists - Václav Havel, banned singer Marta Kubisová, 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.
Director: James Le Sueur
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Timothy Garton Ash as Self - Interviewee |
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Joan Bakewell as BBC Interviewer - BBC Archival Film |
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Shirley Bassey as Self - Subject (archive footage) |
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Kamila Bendova as Self - Interviewee |
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Mikhail Gorbachev as Self - Subject (archive footage) |
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Tenzin Gyatso as Self - Subject (archive footage) |
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Robert F. Kennedy as Self - Subject (archive footage) |
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Martin Luther King Jr. as Self - Subject (archive footage) |
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Frank Zappa as Self - Subject (archive footage) |
| Directing | James Le Sueur | Director |
| Writing | James Le Sueur | Writer |
| Sound | Tom Larson | Music |