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Banjo Romantika
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Filmmaker Name:
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Shara K. Lange, Lee Bidgood
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Film Length:
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56 min
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Film Year:
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2015
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Duration:
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46-75 min
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Decade:
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2010s
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Color:
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color
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Region:
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Europe
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Banjo Romantika shares the story of Czech musicians who play a unique version of American Bluegrass, melding their political past and present into a lively musical tradition. Czechs first heard bluegrass during World War II, when the Armed Forces Network broadcast American music for soldiers. For many dissatisfied Czechs living in a communist state, bluegrass was an outlet of creative expression, and more so, a look towards freedom.
In this film, ethnomusicologist Lee Bidgood explores the genre’s fascinating history with musicians in the Czech Republic, and performs original Czech Bluegrass songs at renowned venue, The Down Home, in Johnson City, Tennessee.
“In Tennessee every cowboy or every farmer loves this music and that's why everyone young and old knows how to play it. Guitars, harmonicas, banjos, bass…I'll stay forever in the land of this music.”
— 'Bluegrass Tennessee', Czech Song
“It was the discovery of a musical genre…because it was forbidden, it was more tantalizing.”
— Marko Čermák, Greenhorns
"Clocking in at fifty-six minutes, the film is tailor-made to screenin in a classroom and will kick-start discussions of unexpected cross-cultural connections, musical imaginaries, local reception and reinvention, and tradition and innovation. Banjo Romantika is recommended for bluegrass aficionados, global traditional music scholars, and anyone with an hour to spend with an enriching, human-centered project."
— Scott V. Linford, Ethnomusicology
Banjo Romantika: American Bluegrass Music & The Czech Imagination
Directed by
Shara Lange
Produced by
Lee Bidgood, Shara Lange
Music Supervisor
Mirna Hariz
Film Site
Linford, Scott V., Banjo Romantika: American Bluegrass Music and the Czech Imagination (Film Review), Ethnomusicology, Fall 2019, p 506-509.
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