Czech film

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The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

The Czech film plays a prominent role in European cinema. The Czech Republic and formerly Czechoslovakia  is home to important film directors and film productions. The Barrandov film studios are located in Prague - one of the largest and oldest film studios in Europe.

history

Beginnings

Viktor Ponrepo, magician and founder of the first Prague cinema

In 1896, a year after the Lumière brothers showed the first films, the first films were shown in Karlovy Vary and Prague. The first film made in the Bohemian countries was made in 1897 when the Americans Marc Klaw and Abraham Erlanger recorded the Höritz Passion Play . Jan Kříženecký was a pioneer of Czech silent film . Viktor Ponrepo opened the first cinema in Prague in 1904. Jiří Menzel's comedy The Wonderful Men with the Crank from 1978 is about the beginnings of Czech cinema.

Interwar period and occupation

Poster for the sound film Noah's Ark by Michael Curtiz , which premiered in Prague in 1930
Anny Ondra

With the establishment of Czechoslovakia after the First World War , a strong, independent film sector began to develop. With the beginning of the sound film directors Martin Frič , Karel Lamač , Gustav Machatý , whose film Ekstase (1933) caused an international sensation because of its daring eroticism at the time. The first Czech film star on the international stage was Anny Ondra , in the domestic film world Vlasta Burian was celebrated as the "king of comedians". In 1933, the Barrandov film studios, equipped with the latest technology, began operations. Well-known directors and actors and at the time were Josef Rovenský , Hugo Haas , Lída Baarová and Adina Mandlová . The actor duo Voskovec and Werich , known for their avant-garde theater , have also appeared in films.

The German occupation after the defeat of Czechoslovakia brought significant restrictions to the highly developed Czech film. Czech films were censored and their means of production were severely restricted. In 1941 the production company Prag-Film was founded to operate the National Socialist film policy . Directors such as Frič and František Čáp were active under the occupation, the Czech actor star of the 1940s is Oldřich Nový .

post war period

In 1946 the film faculty of the Prague Academy of Performing Arts was founded and the film festival opened in Marienbad , which was moved to Karlovy Vary in 1950. The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is one of the oldest of its kind.

After the February revolution of the Communist Party , film production was again restricted by censorship and ideological guidelines. It is the time of numerous extraordinary cartoons , a harmless genre. The animated cartoon drew on the tradition of the puppet theater. The director Hermína Týrlová did pioneering work in the field of puppet films even before the war and created innovative short films. Jiří Trnka is considered the master of puppet films. In this way he produced literary classics for adults and dystopian satires, among other things . The center of Czech animation film production was the Ateliéry Bonton Zlín . Karel Zeman's Journey into Primeval Times , an educational fantasy film for children, and The Invention of Perdition based on Jules Verne's original, are characterized by special effects that are unusual for their time.

The Laterna magika , which still exists today, is a project launched by Alfréd Radok for Expo 58 in 1958 , which combined film projections and performances on the stage and thus achieved a pioneering achievement in multimedia theater.

Czechoslovak New Wave

Jiří Menzel , an active representative of the New Wave to this day

In the late 1950s, directors began to break free from the influence of Stalinism on the film industry. The 1960s were the golden age of Czechoslovak film made possible by the relaxation of restrictive cultural policy. The Czechoslovak New Wave is associated with the early work of directors Miloš Forman , Věra Chytilová , Jiří Menzel , although the works of older, better-known Czechoslovak directors such as Karel Kachyňa and Vojtěch Jasný are also included in this phase. The New Wave includes a wide range of fresh and original work and was influenced by Italian Neorealism and French Nouvelle Vague . Therefore, it cannot be reduced to a certain style or attitude towards filmmaking. Examples of this range from highly stylized films to avant-garde films, literary adaptations based on historical material (e.g. Démanty noci by Jan Němec ) to semi-improvised comedies with contemporary themes and amateur actors (e.g. The Fire Brigade Ball (Hoří, má panenko) by Miloš Forman). In addition, the first Czech musical films were shot ( hop picker , lemonade joe ).

Typical for films of this era is their absurd, black humor and an interest in the concerns of the common people - especially when they are confronted with major historical or political upheavals. The shop on Obchod na korze by Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos (1965) and Liebe nach Timetable (Ostře sledované vlaky) by Jiří Menzel (1966) won the Oscar for best foreign language film .

After the crackdown on the Prague Spring in 1968, numerous filmmakers emigrated and critical films were again banned, such as Der Leichenverbrenner (1969) by Juraj Herz or Menzel's Lerchen am Faden . These films, locked away by the censorship, were called safe films ("tresorové filmy"). Vojtěch Jasný, Jan Němec, Ivan Passer , Bernard Šafařík and others emigrated. Miloš Forman was awarded two Oscars while in exile in the USA.

Domestic production lost its innovative strength due to the ideological restrictions. Only a few films like Heimat, sweet home could convince the international film world with artistic quality. Comedies and crime films predominated, but above all the 1970s and 1980s were the heyday of Czech fairy tale films ( Three Hazelnuts for Cinderella , How to Wake Up Sleeping Beauty , The Fearless ), a genre that is still strongly represented in the Czech Republic today. Czechoslovak TV series, especially by Jindřich Polák, were very well received . His series about the magician Pan Tau or the science fiction series The Visitors (TV series) about a chaotic journey through time are considered classics today.

present

Jan Svěrák won the Oscar for Kolya in 1996

Since the Velvet Revolution in November 1989, free film production has been possible again. Authors and directors who were banned until then appeared together with up-and-coming artists. Kolja (1996) by Jan Svěrák was the third Czech film to win the Oscar for best foreign language film. Jan Hřebejk's films Kuschelnester (1999) and We Must Hold Together (2000) deal with contemporary history in a tragicomic way, while Želary (2003) in the form of a rough war drama. I served the English king (2006) is a literary film adaptation by Jiří Menzel based on the novel by Bohumil Hrabal . Successful mainstream films were The Year of the Devil (2002), Leergut (2007) and Ab ans Meer! (2014).

Among the animated films, Kooky (2010), based on the tradition of the puppet film, and Alois Nebel (2011), the film adaptation of a graphic novel , are outstanding. The well-developed Czech infrastructure is often used for international productions, a recent phenomenon is commercial television productions.

Film awards and film festivals

The Czech Lion Film Award has been awarded annually in 15 categories since 1993 . The award is in the shape of a crystal lion. The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is one of the world's 13 leading "A" category (film festivals with international competition) accredited by the FIAPF film producers' association. The Zlín Film Festival is an international film festival for children and young people.

Well-known Czech directors

Czech film director and two-time Oscar winner Miloš Forman (2009)
Věra Chytilová
The surrealist Jan Švankmajer

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e The History of Cinematography - Hello! Czech Republic. Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs portal
  2. ↑ Pamela Grace: The Religious Rilm. Christianity and the Hagiopic. Wiley-Blackwell 2009. p. 17
  3. ^ Czech film between 1939 and 1945 - Radio Prague 2005
  4. ↑ Modern Czech filmmaking - Hello! Czech Republic.

Web links

Commons : Cinema of the Czech Republic  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files