TIBOR SZEMZŐ: THE MESSAGE – DR. KAFKA'S LAST LOVE Festival Theatre Music, film, director: Tibor Szemző In the Franz Kafka novella, An Imperial Message, the emperor sends a message to his last subject, but the messenger fails to reach him due to the large crowd. What could the emperor's message contain, and what are we to do? Why are we here on this earth? Kafka's unfamiliar smile looms over us in An Imperial Message. The film of The Message – Dr. Kafka's Last Love pays a visit to the key locations in the lives of Kafka, his last lover and his last friend. Będzin and Dombóvár, the birthplaces of Dora Diamant and Klopstock Róbert respectively; the High Tátras, where the friendship between Kafka and Klopstock began; Budapest, which played an important role not only in the life of Róbert Klopstock; Berlin, the scene of Dora and Franz's life together; Kierling, the sanatorium where Dora and Róbert spent Kafka's final days at his side. And Brooklyn... not entirely as it was in Kafka's novel Amerika, but where Klopstock lived and worked for more than 30 years. The musicians play in perfect unison with the film, as if it were their music that is bringing the images to life as An Imperial Message. Franz Kafka's short zen discussion is retold in a dozen languages with the accompaniment of various musical compositions. Throughout the performance, these scenes are interspersed with brief personal recollections from Dora Diamont and Róbert Klopstock – in Hungarian – of key moments in the life they shared with Kafka with the hindsight of more than 25 years. The text for the piece was written by András Forgách, based on original documentation. The films, music and direction are the work of Tibor Szemző.