After premiering at this year’s prestigious Visions du Réel, Lucie Králová’s ingenious “Kapr Code” appears here, for its Australian Premiere – tracing the life of prominent 20th century Czech composer, Jan Kapr.

Designed around an ambitious libretto, and meticulously cut together with archival material – including love letters, photos, secret police reports and Kapr’s own Super 8 home videos – “Kapr Code’’ transforms Kapr’s strong and ambivalent life story into an operatic composition.

A Stalin prize laureate who produced around 180 scores and was later banned in communist Czechoslovakia, Kapr’s life is paradigmatic of the complexity of living as an artist under an authoritarian regime. “Kapr Code” pays tribute to a controversial and progressive figure of the Soviet-era; weaving between the past and the present, this documentary, with its playful and refined editing work, shakes up the idea of biography and presents a masterful ode to creativity, life and the traces of a troubled, prolific man.