Kolya

Jan Sverak's sincere study of a crusty classical musician whose life is transformed by an unlikely chain of events is a modest film about flawed people and their relationships. On the eve of Czechoslovakia's 1989 "Velvet Revolution," veteran cellist Louka (Zdenek Sverak, the filmmaker's father, who also penned the screenplay) -- once a mainstay of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra -- has fallen on hard times, reduced to making ends meet by playing funerals at the city crematorium. In exchange for a modest fee, the confirmed bachelor agrees to marry a friend's Russian niece so she can obtain Czech papers. The apparently simple -- even fortuitous -- arrangement sours ...