Private Century - A Stroke of Butterfly Wings

A Stroke of Butterfly Wings is a view into the family background of composer Václav Felix from the 1930s to 1980s. It shows the sequence of events and context in which Václav's procommunist attitude was formed. Václav's emotional relationship with his parents was extremely strong. He saw his father as a great model which he strove to reach and his mother as a protector from whom he sought understanding. However, from 1948 Václav's personal life began to unwind in connection with the political situation in Czechoslovakia. Václav fully identified with the ideology of the Communist party. His ideology also determined his private, personal decisions, such as the choice of his life partner, and caused a difficult relationship with his father who spent time in a Communist prison. The political ideology also affected his career of a composer. He found refuge in his hobby - collecting butterflies. The ups and downs of his life enable us to observe the roots of Václav's worldview and the reasons behind his lifelong beliefs.