Czechoslovak New Wave

Czechoslovak New Wave

33 Episodes

Of all the cinematic New Waves that broke over the world in the 1960s, the one in Czechoslovakia was among the most fruitful, fascinating, and radical. With a wicked sense of humor and a healthy streak of surrealism, a group of fearless directors—including Miloš Forman (THE FIREMEN’S BALL), Vera Chytilová (DAISIES), Jiří Menzel (CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS), Jaromil Jireš (VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS), Jan Němec (A REPORT ON THE PARTY AND GUESTS), and Juraj Herz (THE CREMATOR)—risked censorship and began to use film to speak out about the hypocrisy and absurdity of the Communist state. Ranging in style from the dazzlingly experimental to the arrestingly realistic, these revolutionary transmissions from a singular time and place stand as models of art as a tool of political resistance.

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Czechoslovak New Wave
  • Return of the Prodigal Son

    Episode 1

    Directed by Evald Schorm • 1967 • Czechoslovakia

    Evald Schorm was one of the most politically outspoken of the Czech New Wave filmmakers. This raw psychological drama about an engineer unable to adjust to the world around him following his suicide attempt is at heart a scathing portrait of socia...

  • The Firemen’s Ball

    Episode 2

    Directed by Miloš Forman • 1967 • Czechoslovakia
    Starring Jan Vostrcil, Josef Šebánek, František Reinstein

    A milestone of the Czech New Wave, Miloš Forman’s first color film THE FIREMEN’S BALL is both a dazzling comedy and a provocative political satire. A hilarious saga of good intentions confo...

  • Capricious Summer

    Episode 3

    Directed by Jiří Menzel • 1968 • Czechoslovakia

    Two years after his worldwide hit CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS, Jiří Menzel directed this amusing idyll about three middle-aged men whose mellow summer is interrupted by the arrival of a circus performer and his beautiful assistant. A meditation on agi...

  • A Boring Afternoon

    Episode 4

    Directed by Ivan Passer • 1968 • Czechoslovakia

    Patrons of a bar interact on a summer Sunday afternoon.

  • The Joke

    Episode 5

    Directed by Jaromil Jireš • 1969 • Czechoslovakia

    Jaromil Jireš's brilliant adaptation of Milan Kundera's novel tells the fragmentary tale of a man expelled from the Communist Party because of a political joke. After "rehabilitation" in the mines and a stint in prison, he hatches a revenge plot...

  • The Cremator

    Episode 6

    Directed by Juraj Herz • 1969 • Czechoslovakia

    Czechoslovak New Wave iconoclast Juraj Herz’s terrifying, darkly comic vision of the horrors of totalitarian ideologies stars a supremely chilling Rudolf Hrušínský as the pathologically morbid Karel Kopfrkingl, a crematorium manager in 1930s Prague ...

  • All My Good Countrymen

    Episode 7

    Directed by Vojtěch Jasný • 1969 • Czechoslovakia

    Vojtěch Jasný won the best director award at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival for this sweeping portrait of a small Czech village between the years of 1945 and 1958, during which the residents go from hopeful in the aftermath of the defeat of the Na...

  • The Ear

    Episode 8

    Directed by Karel Kachyňa • 1970 • Czechoslovakia

    This paranoid surveillance thriller unfolds over the course of a tense, turbulent night in the life of Ludvík (Radoslav Brzobohatý), a Communist party official, and his wife Anna (Jiřina Bohdalová). Returning home from a party one evening, the pa...

  • Valerie and Her Week of Wonders

    Episode 9

    Directed by Jaromil Jireš • 1970 • Czechoslovakia
    Starring Jaroslava Schallerová, Helena Anyžová, Petr Kopriva

    A girl on the verge of womanhood finds herself in a sensual fantasyland of vampires, witchcraft, and other threats in this eerie and mystical movie daydream. VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WON...