O slavnosti a hostech

Artist Talk: How to know what’s really happening With Francis McKee

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This film, directed by Jan Němec and written by him and his then wife Ester Krumbachová, was banned from 1966 to 1968 in Czechoslovakia because of its satirical perspective on the country’s regime. Although it was briefly allowed to be shown during the Prague Spring of 1968, it was suppressed for a further twenty years after the movement was crushed. Němec and Krumbachová faced persecution from the authorities after the release of their film. In 1974, Němec was forced to leave Czechoslovakia. Similarly, Krumbachová, despite being divorced from Němec, was blacklisted. While she managed to complete her own directorial debut, THE MURDER OF MR DEVIL (1970), she was unable to work again until she received a “certificate of rehabilitation” in 1991. The satire dissected the brutality of power and the sadistic coercion implemented by the authorities on the general population. Tellingly though, it was underpinned by Ester Krumbachová’s thorough research on the key figures in the regime and the secret police.
More information on the film provides the essay “Lessons of Freedom: 1965-1966” by Mortiz Pfeifer on the East European Film Bulletin as well as the trailer for the film on the YouTube page of the Národní filmový archiv.
Introduction by Matěj Strnad.