A young girl slowly bears witness to systematic sexual abuse in her all-girls choir in Broken Voices (Sbormistr), a deeply unsettling Czech drama that premiered in competition at this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and is now playing in Prague cinemas. Inspired by the infamous real-life Bambini di Praga case that made headlines back in 2004, this fictionalized account dedicates focus to a single victim, but relays a frightening account of how predators subversively operate in plain sight to rob children of their innocence.
Written and directed by Ondřej Provazník (who previously made 2019’s underrated Old-Timers), Broken Voices stars Kateřina Falbrová, outstanding in her film debut as 13-year-old Karolína, who dreams of joining a prestigious girls’ choir in early 1990s Czech Republic. Her 15-year-old sister Lucie (Maya Kintera) is already a member of the choir, and competing for an exclusive spot on a 20-girl roster that will perform on tour in the United States.
Strict but charismatic choirmaster Vítězslav Mácha (Slovak actor Juraj Loj) takes notice of young Karolína while observing a group of singers studying under his mother (Ivana Wojtylová). When one of his students unexpectedly drops out, he invites the young soprano to join her sister on a winter retreat to the Czech mountains to compete with other girls for a chance to make the choir for their upcoming tour.
Over the first 90 minutes of Broken Voices, there’s no explicit presentation of impropriety on behalf of Mácha; viewers unfamiliar with the real-life case the film is based upon may wonder where the narrative is headed. Like the instructor in Whiplash, the choirmaster seems to have little regard for his singers’ feelings—he dismisses one coldly, and instinctively gives Karolína another’s solo—but he’s only doing his job. He informally plays guitar and sings with the girls, and encourages Karolína to join him in the sauna to relax, but never crosses any lines.
Instead, Provazník only hints that something isn’t right here through the characterizations of the girls in the choir, who display the subtle signs of abuse that go beyond teenage angst. Some of the girls start a game charting which girls Mácha pays the most attention to; when Karolína starts to catch his eye, her sister locks her outside, naked and in the cold, acting on the kind of jealousy that could only originate from matters of the heart.
In the film’s final act, any question of Mácha’s true nature is suddenly and unexpectedly answered in a sequence that shocks and surprises the audience as much as the protagonist. In a downright chilling depiction of child sexual abuse, the choirmaster preys on his victim while Lukáš Milota’s camera stays devastatingly still. We see signs of life going on through the window of a New York City hotel, but in the corner of the screen, obscured through a reflection on a TV, another life is silently destroyed.
Over the final moments of Broken Voices, we finally understand that Karolína is not Mácha’s only victim, but the latest in a long series of girls he has taken advantage of unimpeded. The teenagers all know what’s going on—as does Mácha’s mother—but because the issue is never explicitly confronted, a predator is allowed to quietly claim victim after victim, year after year.
Bohumil Kulínský Jr., the real-life inspiration for the Mácha character, would be convicted of raping 19 underage girls and sexually abusing another 23 over a 20-year period from 1984-2004. He would be sentenced to only 5.5 years in prison, and served only two. His crimes went unnoticed for decades, but lit up tabloid headlines upon revelation.
Audiences expecting a dissection of the real-life story of the Bambini di Praga case may be left in the cold: throughout Broken Voices, the extent of the abuse is only hinted at, and the perpetrator is never punished. But untethered from the responsibility of reporting a true story, Provazník is more interested in uncovering just how something like this could have gone on for so long. He accomplishes that with devastating authenticity.
Loj, who featured in a memorable role in Czech Oscar submission Charlatan, is downright frightening as Mácha, but it’s Falbrová, who earned a special jury mention at Karlovy Vary, who carries the film. There are lengthy scenes here positioning her as another face in the choir, but we can read all the film’s subtext in her eyes; a final hand-holding moment, set up earlier in the movie, is unforgettable.
Everyone hears the whispers about a Harvey Weinstein or a Bill Cosby, but it takes decades for their crimes to fully come to light—if they do at all. Broken Voices is a chilling reminder of how easily abuse can remain hidden in plain sight, especially when it hides behind trust. It’s a quiet, harrowing film that refuses to offer easy closure—only expose an unsettling and rarely-discussed truth.
