Michal Pavlíček: Rocker Version 7.0

Director Michal Baumbrucka's documentary follows Michal Pavlíček as he turns seventy. This is not a conventional biography - the film asks what drives this successful musician and composer, what constrains him, and whether the urge to create is inexhaustible.

The camera captures Pavlíček at a series of concerts in Ostrava and Brno after he recovered from surgery and returned to the stage. The film follows him at the Pohoda festival's main stage - where a whirlwind sweeps the stage right after the Prague Selection's set - and then in a Moravian village where he plays Chinese gongs with a virtuoso for a small group of enthusiasts, before performing that same evening to a packed hall with the Selection in a small town.

A second thread explores the creation of music for theatre productions and the Czech Television series Octopus. Pavlíček discusses his process of finding motifs and moods, and how he constantly records "terabytes" of music from which he selects and completes the final material. A third thread follows the preparation of a new solo album in collaboration with Phil Schoenfeld, a musician who has navigated New York's music and drug scenes - a process full of tension, postponement, hesitation, and surprise. The film's leitmotif is the contrast between Pavlíček's meticulousness and attention to detail on one hand and spontaneous inspiration on the other.

The film features Michal Pavlíček alongside Bára Basiková, Michael Kocáb, Vilém Čok, Jiří Hrubeš, Klaudius Kryšpín, Radim Vizváry, and other friends, family members, and collaborators.