six days of slovak cinema february 16 - 22, 2001 photo: the thousand year old bee

see information about our box office sales here. film descriptions and times After the de-Stalinization of the late 50s, cinematic creativity bloomed throughout Eastern Europe. The young directors who had been trained in the various film schools by old masters of the previous generations got their start in the short form, and, influenced by the New Wave in France, tried to find new formal strategies and stories that spoke to the rebellious spirit behind the Iron Curtain. Before Russian tanks entered Prague in the spring of 1968, one of the liveliest and most dynamic national cinemas was that of Czechoslovakia, and most of the films from that period are familiar to Americans. What is less well-known is that there was an attempt by Slovak directors to speak of and through their own culture, as opposed to that of their Czech counterparts. The Slovak sensibility was equally mordant and absurdist, but tended toward the surreal and the magic realist. The filmmakers who worked in this vein included Martin Holly, Dusan Hanák, Juraj Jakubisko ("not all of us have the eyes of Jakubisko, which allow us to perceive the miraculous, the unexpected and fantastic even in trivial everyday life" wrote his fan, Federico Fellini) and Stefan Uher, whose THE SUN IN THE NET more or less marked the beginning of the Slovak part of the "Czechoslovak film miracle." Join us in this appeciation of a precious, magical but almost unknown film culture. This program is presented in collaboration with the Association of Art and Communication and the Slovak Film Institute. It is part of a larger event called "Art from the Heart (Celebrate Slovakia)" that will take place in February 2001 in New York City at the Museum of Modern Art, the American Craft Museum and the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center. It will include an additional film presentation, a mime theater performance by the world-renowned mime artist Milan Sladek, a dance theater performance by Durovcik Dance Theater, a visual art exhibition, a classical concert by Moyzes Quartet, an opera concert by Lubica Vargicova, a play presentation by Astorka Theatre, a lecture and a number of craft workshops. The main organizer of "Celebrate Slovakia" is the Association of Art and Communication in Slovakia. "Celebrate Slovakia" is made possible through the financial support of Slovnaft, Slovak Gas Industry, Deloitte & Touche, Coca-Cola, Squire, Sanders & Dempsey and US Steel. Special thanks to the Trust for Mutual Understanding and Czech Airlines. For more information on Art from the Heart (Celebrate Slovakia), please visit slovakculture.com.

paper heads the birds, orphans and madmen

PICTURES OF THE OLD WORLD / OBRAZY STARÉHO SVETA Dusan Hanák, 1972; 70m Though he’s spent most of his career making fiction films, Dusan Hanák, once described as the "black sheep" of the Czechoslovak film world, is best known for his two extraordinary documentaries, PICTURES OF THE OLD WORLD and PAPER HEADS. PICTURES, which was greeted with bafflement running to outrage by Communist authories and promptly banned, is a beautiful document of life among a group of villagers in the remote Tatra mountains. PICTURES is ö – Jytte Jensen Fri Feb 16: 1 & 9:30 PAPER HEADS / PAPIEROVÉHLAVY Dusan Hanák, 1995; 96m "Principally a concise record of human rights abuses in Czechoslovakia under Communism, told through archive footage and interviews. This may sound dry and academic, but the effect is anything but. The choice of material is very careful (the film was five years in preparation) and graphically illustrates the absurdity of those brutal years. As Hanák explained, ‘People are still scared to talk. Some people don’t want to talk. Some people don’t know how to talk.’ He expresses himself perfectly in the medium [of documentary] and transforms it into something which is both fact and entertainment. He refuses to adopt the posture of distance from his subject matter, as many documentarists do, but at the same time, his humanism and feeling for his subject never compromise his integrity as neutral observer." – Andrew Horton Fri Feb 16: 2:30 & 7:35 THE THOUSAND YEAR OLD BEE / TISíCROCNÁ I, II Juraj Jakubisko, 1983; 162m Jakubisko’s magnificent, sprawling folk epic begins at the end of the 19th century and ends with the First World War. The film focuses on a Slovak family led by Martin (THE SHOP ON MAIN STREET’s Jozef Króner), a beekeeper and bricklayer and the family patriarch, and his son Samo, who becomes politically active before the ultimate destruction of war. Gorgeous, packed with life and wonder, Czech critics ranked THE THOUSAND YEAR OLD BEE as Czechoslovakia’s best film of the 1980s. "This extraordinary film, based by co-scenarist Peter Jaros on his novel, reveals more clearly than any other the magnificent gifts of Jakubisko" – Michael Wilmington, Los Angeles Times Fri Feb 16: 4:30; Sun Feb 18: 2:45 THE SHOP ON MAIN STREET / OBCHOD NA KORZE Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos, 1965; 128m One of the most renowned and revered films of the 60s and the 1965 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film, THE SHOP ON MAIN STREET is built around a gut-wrenching performance from Jozef Króner as a mild-mannered carpenter with a nagging wife who wants him to move up in the world of WWII Slovakia. His fascist brother-in-law urges him to take the absurd job of "Aryan comptroller" in a local button shop. He becomes close friends with the owner, Rosalie (Ida Kaminska), an aging, deaf Jewish woman, but finds himself in a quandary over whether or not to shelter her from deportation. A tour-de-force study of meekness overrun by brutality, THE SHOP ON MAIN STREET was one of the key movies of the 60s, and its impact is no less devastating today. Sat Feb 17: 2:45; Thurs Feb 22: 3:30

the assistant wild lilies

THE CRUCIAL YEARS AKA THE YEARS OF CHRIST / KRISTOVE ROKY Juraj Jakubisko, 1967; 95m Jakubisko's internationally lauded debut, the first film of a projected trilogy, signalled a burst of freedom for the younger generation, both in its free-form approach to filmmaking and its spirit of camaraderie – the boys and girls wanted nothing to do with the Czech-Slovak tensions of their elders. Two Slovak brothers, an artist and a pilot, share a flat in Prague. Both of them struggle to understand the direction their lives are taking. THE YEARS OF CHRIST has the distinction of being garlanded with acclaim one minute and being banned the next, following the Soviet invasion in 1968. "The casualness and disorder, the satirical edge, the emphasis on the individual are entirely modern and, in fact, Godardesque... a total break with the ossified heroics of Stalinist cinema." – Amos Vogel "Jakubisko is to Slovakia what Márquez is to Latin America: its unrepressed, unfettered soul." - Deborah Young, Variety International Film Guide Sat Feb 17: 5:15 & 9 THE BIRDS, ORPHANS AND MADMEN / VTÁCIKOVIA, SIROTY A BLÁZNI Juraj Jakubisko, 1969; 78m Released in 1990 after a 20-year ban, The Birds, Orphans and Madmen is thought of by many as Jakubisko's finest work. Yorick and Ondrej are friends and survivors of war. They live in a bombed-out church, a strange, chaotic universe unto itself. They’re joined by Martha, with whom they begin a ménage-à-trois that reaches its "climax" in an abandoned American convertible. "A mad universe of surrealist tableaux and bizarre actions, with every composition a poem in design and color. [An] unconventional fantasy [that] blends dream and reality, tenderness and cruelty... . A delirious tour de force." – Amos Vogel Sat Feb 17: 7:15; Sun Feb 18: 8 SUN IN THE NET / SINKO V SIETI Stefan Uher, 1962; 100m At first banned as "anti-socialist art," the film was subsequently screened and created a sensation. A superior and largely overlooked art film of the early 60s, SUN IN THE NET is a shimmering, poetically surreal exploration of the everyday lives of young people trying to make sense of life, very much in the vein of Antonioni and Bergman but with its own special force and beauty. The film centers around Fajolo and Bela, two casual lovers, who drift away from one another, and around Bela’s blind mother, who is at the center of some of the film’s most haunting sequences. A benchmark, both politically and artistically. Sun Feb 18: 6; Thurs Feb 22: 9 THE ASSISTANT / POMOCNíK Zoro Záhon, 1981; 92m Zoro Záhon’s adaptation of Ladislav Baliek’s novel takes on the subject of fluctuating morality in the post-war years, when scores of Hungarian immigrants were being driven away from Czecho-Slovakia. Stefan, a member of the resistance movement, arrives in a small town on the Slovak-Hungarian border with his wife and daughter. He is given the ownership of a state-confiscated butcher shop, and also inherits its sly, seductive assistant Volent, who knows all the ins and outs of small-town politics. As the family’s stock rises, in large part thanks to the assistant, Stefan sees his life crumbling around him. Záhon’s film is a carefully observed (the period detail is bitingly on target), deceptively simple war of nerves between the charming assistant and his suspicious, less charismatic boss. Mon Feb 19: 3:30 & 7:10 SIGNUM LAUDIS Martin Holl´y, 1980; 88m A winner at the Karlovy Vary film festival, SIGNUM LAUDIS (meaning "medal of honor") breathes vibrant life into old, familiar territory: the First World War and the division between officers and enlisted men, as seen in Paths of Glory or Life and Nothing But... Vlado Müller (who appeared in Jakubisko’s THE YEARS OF CHRIST) gives a very moving performance as Corporal Hoferik, a would-be hero who receives a medal for a questionable act of bravery under fire. What’s most impressive about the film is its texture: rough faces and slackened bodies that really look like they’ve been through the horrors of war, under the bright Eastern European sunshine — the vibrant color palette is like an affront to their world-weariness. Holl´y also captures the never-ending threat of war, in which a pastoral scene can become a field of carnage within seconds. Mon Feb 19: 5:20 & 9 WILD LILIES AKA LILIES OF THE FIELD / L'ALIE POLNÉ Elo Havetta, 1972; 87m WILD LILIES revolves around World War I veterans who have returned home to find little else beyond a descent into either beggary or lunacy. Hejges, a clarinet player, accepts the vagabond life of a tramp but is abused by his fellow beggars who steal his clarinet. Peasant landlady Paula hosts him and responds to his advances. She prevents him from wandering off, but when Krujbel, an indigent theologian drives off with her carriage, Hejges is accused of stealing it. "[The film] is shot mostly in black and white, though scenes are punctuated by the use of filters: yellow for morning, green for fields, red for love scenes, yellow again for night interiors and blue for moonlit exteriors. Havetta describes his film as based entirely on polyphonous musical compositions. The characters develop like a leitmotif, coming together for a clamorous finale." – Mohamed El-Assyouti Wed Feb 21: 4:30 & 8 STORY OF SEVEN HANGING MEN / BALADA O SIEDMICH OBSESEÝCH Martin Holl´y, 1968; 67m Martin Holl´y, son of a well-known theater director, graduate of FAMU (film school) in Prague and a contemporary of Uher and Jakubisko, made films in both Slovak and Czech, and was in many ways a bridge between those two worlds. His beat was psychological drama with a faintly absurdist overtone to offset the intensity. His greatest work is this tough, beautifully visualized 1968 adaptation of the novel by Russian author Leonid Andreyev, about five anarchists, arrested for an assassination attempt on a czarist functionary, awaiting their own execution. preceded by Carneval Ondrey Rudavsky, 1994; 4m and Shaman Ondrey Rudavsky, 1998; 4m Wed Feb 21: 6:20 & 9:45