Alex Švamberk / Ava´n´Garde: Akce K

When the war in Korea ended, representatives of the four countries, which had not participated in the fighting, Switzerland, Sweden, Poland and Czechoslovakia, supervised the truce. The Czechoslovakian soldiers arrived in the war-torn and divided country immediately after the truce was signed in July 1953 and were among the first to see the aftermath of the bloody fighting.

As a part of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission they supervised the withdrawal of weapons and the pullout of the UN soldiers and Chinese volunteers. Far away from home, without basic facilities and threatened by malaria, they investigated the allegations of truce breaking and through the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission they also helped to decide the fate of the prisoners of war. Some of the prisoners did not want to return home, while others were reluctant to voice their desire to go back to the communist North Korea in front of fellow prisoners.

The first three years after the truce over 600 Czechoslovakian soldiers were sent to Korea to take part in the inspections of the territories of both Koreas. Czechoslovakia remained a member of the commission until 1993.
Although the role of Czechoslovakia in the Supervisory Commission was one of the greatest achievements of Czechoslovakian diplomacy, the mission has remained rather forgotten.

In Action K the members of the commission, and also the wife of one of the members, tell stories about their mission to the Korean penninsula during those first three years.
The documentary has an original soundtrack of personal accounts which is embedded into electroacoustic music using sounds recorded in Korea. This recording, and its microtonal third-tone tuning, evokes the most difficult and stressful years of the mission when there was no guarantee that the fighting would not start anew. At the same time, it questions the human memory, what remains of it and what gets gradually lost.
The radio version is a compressed and adjusted version of the hour-long multimedia project, accompanied by a video composed of the historical films. The project was premiered under the same name at the Next Wave festival on the 6th of October 2013 at Studio Hrdinů in Prague.

Concept, script, director, interviews and field recordings by – Alex Švamberk.
Music by Alex Švamberk, Vladimír Šťástka, Alexandra Niklíčková, Miroslav Posejpal.
The Band - Ava´n ´Garde (Alex Švamberk - synthsizer, samples; Vladimír Šťástka - bass guitars; Alexandra Niklíčková - acordeon, keyboard, Tomáš Reiner – guitar, Miroslav Posejpal – prepared piano).
Voice - Andrea Švamberková.
Memories - Václav Borovec, Mečislav Jablonský, Zdeněk Khol, Jaroslav Komárek, Jaroslav Korous, Václav Kučera, Zdeněk Nejedlý, Václav Pražák, Václav Rydyger, Jaroslav Schystal, Vladimír Vlček.

The memories were recorded as part of the project granted by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs RM 04/01/09)