‘Czech Republic’ Archives
Daisies
Sedmikrásky Czechoslovakia, 1966, colour/black & white (assorted tints), 73 minsI was planning to post a full-scale review of Second Run's new DVD of Věra Chytilová's Daisies/Sedmikrásky by today, but workload and a commission to write an extended piece on it for Sight & Sound conspired against me.But what I'll certainly say is that [...]
The East End Film Festival
The 2009 East End Film Festival launches tomorrow - in the words of the organisers:The East End Film Festival showcases hot new talent and homegrown films alongside larger independent releases and special events, informing and inspiring a new generation of filmmakers and audiences from across London and beyond, and raising the profile of this [...]
Darkness visible?
This looks promising - Juraj Herz, director of the supremely culty The Cremator (Spalovač Mrtvol, 1968), is finally returning to his favourite genre with a new horror film called Darkness (Tma), scheduled for completion next year. Here's a short interview that Herz gave to Czech newspaper Mláda fronta DNES, though he doesn't seem to be giving [...]
Short Animated World
I've just discovered the Short Animated World blog, dedicated to chronicling all 100 entries on the recent Annecy Film Festival/Studio Magazine/Variety poll of thirty animation historians to establish the best animated films of all time. There's no original critical material, but each entry offers links and - in most cases - a streaming copy of [...]
Zdeněk and Jan Svěrák in London
On the weekend of 7-9 November, London's Riverside Studios Cinema (probably the most consistently supportive of all British venues when it comes to central and eastern European cinema) is hosting a season of ten films featuring one or both of the father-and-son team of Zdeněk and Jan Svěrák, who will also be appearing in person. The full [...]
The Ghost of Munich
The Prague Post reports on a potentially intriguing film collaboration between two of the elder statesmen of Czech culture: playwright and former president Václav Havel and director Miloš Forman. Inspired by (as opposed to based on) the novel The Ghost of Munich by French journalist Georges-Marc Benamou, it's an account of the British and [...]
Polish Posters revisited
One of the first posts I ever made on this blog enthused about Polish posters (one of the most underrated authentically great art forms of the last century), so I'm delighted to see that Andrew Lindstrom's design resource Well Medicated is hosting a superb online exhibition of fifty Polish film posters, plus the option to leave comments. And I [...]
Irony Man
It's dated yesterday, but I don't think it ever made it into the printed version of the Guardian, which is why I didn't spot it until now. Anyway, here's an excellent interview with Jiří Menzel as his latest film I Served the King of England (Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále, 2007) finally gets a belated and brief British cinema run.
Catching up
Apologies for the apparent lack of activity over the past few days: I've spent them preparing the various multimedia elements of my talk Andrzej Wajda: An Introduction, which I'll be presenting at the BFI Southbank tonight at 6.15 - and, as ever, these things take much longer than expected!Polish Radio recently interviewed me about the Wajda [...]
Jiří Menzel in London
Last Sunday saw the Barbican's London premiere (and only the second UK screening) of Jiří Menzel's I Served the King of England (Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále, 2007), his sixth adaptation of the work of the great Czech writer and eccentric Bohumil Hrabal following his contribution to the anthology Pearls of the Deep (Perličky na dně, [...]