001 Eva Zaoralová: 001 Editorial 001 Forum – Czech film/Interview 002 Jaromír Blažejovský: 002 From Forest to Forest, Escape and Loneliness 008 Petr Koubek: 008 No Film is The Match of A Lifetime to Me – An Interview with Director 2016 � SPECIAL ENGLISH ISSUE � FOR FREE Jan Prušinovský 012 Miloš Kameník: 012 I Do Not Want To Make Purely Realist Films – An Interview with Director And Producer Petr Oukropec 001 Films 020 Helena Třeštíková, Jakub Hejna: 019 Doomed Beauty (Michal Kříž) 022 Olmo Omerzu: 021 Family Film (Jan Křipač) 024 Tomáš Weinreb, Petr Kazda: 023 I, Olga Hepnarova (Michal Kříž) 026 Marko Škop: 025 Eva Nová (Michal Kříž) 028 Petr Václav: 027 We Are Never Alone (Vojtěch Rynda) 030 Petr Oukropec: 029 In Your Dreams (Miloš Kameník) 001 Books 034 Jan Bernard: 032 Jan Němec – Enfant Terrible of the Czech New Wave, Part II 001 001 Eva Zaoralová: 001 Editorial 001 Forum – Czech film/Interview 002 Jaromír Blažejovský: 002 From Forest to Forest, Escape and Loneliness 008 Petr Koubek: 008 No Film is The Match of A Lifetime to Me – An Interview with Director Jan Prušinovský 012 Miloš Kameník: 012 I Do Not Want To Make Purely Realist Films – An Interview with Director And Producer Petr Oukropec 001 Films 019 Helena Třeštíková, Jakub Hejna: 020 Doomed Beauty (Michal Kříž) 021 Olmo Omerzu: 022 Family Film (Jan Křipač) 023 Tomáš Weinreb, Petr Kazda: 024 I, Olga Hepnarova (Michal Kříž) 025 Marko Škop: 026 Eva Nová (Michal Kříž) 027 Petr Václav: 028 We Are Never Alone (Vojtěch Rynda) 029 Petr Oukropec: 030 In Your Dreams (Miloš Kameník) 001 Books 032 Jan Bernard: 034 Jan Němec – Enfant Terrible of the Czech New Wave, Part II 002 LÉTO 003 bourne_inzerce_CB_210x320_01.indd 1 4.5.16 12:17 Editorial The English version of the Film a doba quarterly journal the tragic fortunes of a Czech star actress of the 1940s who changed its form and graphic layout in 2016 and is being pre- compromised herself through a relationship with a high-rank- pared by new writers, but the meaning behind the Special ing Nazi politician, has already collected awards at a num- English Issue remains unchanged – to bring to our interna- ber of European festivals. 2015’s most successful film on the tional readers an annual summary of information about what domestic scene was The Snake Brothers, which won six of is happening in Czech cinema and to present its current crit- the highest Czech awards for filmmaking, the Czech Lion ical evaluation. The extensive opening article, “From Forest Awards. It won not only in the category of best Czech film, to Forest, Escape and Loneliness”, is an analysis of Czech but its director Jan Prušinovský also won the award for best films made in 2015 by one of the leading Czech critics and director. Included in this issue is an interview with this young teachers Jaromír Blažejovský, wherein the author opines Czech filmmaker who has already aroused interest with his that Czech film critics’ long wait for a new era is starting to previous films. bear fruit. The reasons for this belief are several promising While the Czech new wave of the 21st century con- debuts presented in various sections of last year’s 50th Kar- tinues to take its first steps, one of the major figures of the lovy Vary International Film Festival. It is very probable that 1960s Czech New Wave, Jan Němec, passed away at the this ascending trend in Czech cinema will be confirmed by age of seventy-nine in March 2016. This most active and this year’s 51st edition of the Czech Republic’s biggest in- original of Czech filmmakers luckily managed to leave behind ternational film festival, the results of which we will inform his last film, The Wolf from Royal Vineyard Street, whose you about in our next issue. What readers will already find the last few yards of footage was completed by his close in the present issue are reviews of several Czech films from co-worker and friends, and which will be presented in the the most recent period, which were given a chance to rate competition section of the upcoming 51st Karlovy Vary IFF their merits against titles in domestic distribution as well (1–9 July, 2016). Jan Němec’s opinions on film and his own as those in international festivals. These include, above all, work were already included in last year’s Special English Tomáš Weinreb’s and Petr Kazda’s debut I, Olga Hepnarová Issue, which contained an extensive excerpt from the first which was screened to acclaim at this year’s Berlinale in its part of Jan Bernard’s book Jan Němec: Enfant Terrible of the Panorama section, while Petr Oukropec’s In Your Dreams was Czech New Wave. A similar excerpt, this time from the sec- similarly successful in the Generation section. Readers will ond part of this massive book, concludes the present issue. surely find an interesting complement in an interview with I can recommend it as an educational yet also extraordinarily the latter filmmaker, which is also included in the present captivating read. issue. Family Film, by young Slovenian director Olmo Omer- zu, even managed to collect a prize in Tokyo, while Helena ⌧ Eva Zaoralová Třeštíková’s documentary Doomed Beauty, which follows fILM A DobA Proofing Critical quarterly journal dedicated to film and the times Jana Kynclová since 1955, Special English Issue Production and distribution Published by Spolek přátel Filmu a doby, z. s. with financial Vydavatelství Filozofické fakulty Univerzity Palackého support of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic v Olomouci and the State Cinematography Fund Printed by Editor-in-chief Tisk Kvalitně, s. r. o. Eva Zaoralová Sokolská 971/193, 190 00 Praha Executive editor Michal Kříž fILM A DobA Branická 620/124, Braník, 147 00 Praha 4 Writers e-mail: [email protected] Jan Křipač, Rudolf Schimera, Stanislav Ulver, www.filmadoba.eu Radana Ulverová � filmadoba Editorial board Free of charge Michal Bregant, Tereza Brdečková, Saša Gedeon, Milan Klepikov, Jiří Kubíček, Pavel Mára, Alena Prokopová, ISSN: 0015-1068 Jan Svoboda, Zdena Škapová, Helena Třeštíková Registered with the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic under No. E 1569 Graphic design and layout Lukáš Kijonka a Michal Krůl � Kolektiv Studio Translation Michal Spáda Language editing Jeffrey Keith Parrott 001 Forum – Czech film Schmitke (dir. Štěpán Altrichter, 2014) From Forest to Forest, Escape and Loneliness Jaromír Blažejovský Czech films failing to find a way out of their own con- It has been a very long time since the new wave seemed as finement close as at last year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, The state of Czech cinema is reminiscent of anecdotes where its various sections included several domestic debuts. involving good news and bad news. Last year, thirteen million people bought a cinema ticket, the highest number for the Waiting for the wave last five years. The share of domestic films in the total nev- The most accessible among these debuts appeared ertheless sunk from twenty-three percent in 2013 to seven- to be Slávek Horák’s Home Care (Domácí péče, 2015). The teen percent last year. In the top fifty box office titles, there story of a home care nurse trying to cope with a serious ill- are fourteen Czech films. The most successful of these is ness offers a traditional kind-hearted combination of moving Life is Life (Život je život, d. Martin Cieslar) which neverthe- moments, humor, sadness, and the so-called human touch, less only reached number twelve. There were a dozen genre which used to be popular with domestic audiences. The films made. The majority of them bombed at the box office. main role of the home care nurse Vlasta is played by Alena The State Cinematography Fund provided one hundred and Mihulová, whom moviegoers remember as the rookie nurse twenty million CZK for film production in 2014. The largest from Karel Kachyňa’s feel good comedy Nurses (Sestřičky, amount was granted to the controversial project Devil’s Mis- 1983, two million tickets sold); the role of the good-natured tress (Lída Baarová, d. Filip Renč), which resulted in a clash if boorish husband is played by the popular Bolek Polívka. The of opinions on the Fund’s board. There were around ten am- story takes place in the Moravian countryside, complete with bitious debuts. Cinemas however refused to play many of slivovitz, cimbalom music, vineyards, and fashionable trends them, and subsequently hardly anyone actually saw them. of alternative medicine. The Karlovy Vary IFF competition The good news is that at least the critics if not the audiences made it look like Home Care signaled a return of the taste- had something to think about. ful mainstream and that this bittersweet comedy could not The practice of distribution does not favor domestic pro- miss with audiences of all generations. The festival palace duction. Unless the film is a potential hit that can be played in ovations nevertheless failed to translate to regular movie multiplexes or fit within the art cinema mainstream, exposure theaters. The film premiered in the middle of a hot July and is usually dismal; it is only shown by daring cinema owners in competed against last year’s great blockbuster, the American smaller towns who do not belong to any of the major chains. computer animated production Minions (d. Kyle Balda and As an example let us take Jakub Šmíd’s debut Laputa: a re- Pierre Coffin, 2015); it ended up with less than one hundred lationship drama with the frequently cast and perhaps even thousand tickets sold.