The Firemen’s Ball (Horí, má panenko)

Part of BAMcinematek

Fri, Dec 12—Sun, Dec 14 at 2, 3:45, 5:30, 7:30*, 9:30pm
Mon, Dec 15—Thu, Dec 18 at 4:30, 6, 7:45, 9:30pm
*Q&A with Milos Forman on Fri, Dec 12 at 7:30pm

Directed by Milos Forman
With Jan Vostrcil

(1967) 70min

“The Firemen’s Ball hasn’t dated as entertainment; Forman doesn't push his political points, being content to let them make themselves, unfolding gracefully from the human drama.” —The Chicago Sun-Times

The film that prompted the resignation of 40,000 Czech firemen when it was first released, Milos Forman’s black comedy is a controversial classic of Czech New Wave cinema. The film tells the story of a former fire chief who is to be presented with an honorary fire axe on his 86th birthday. Nothing goes right at the celebration, however, as a series of bureaucratic catastrophes, each successively more ridiculous and hilarious, ensues. Read as an allegory for the failures of communism, the film so incensed the Czech government that it was promptly banned upon release. Viewed today, Forman’s raucous satire has lost none of its bite. In Czech with English subtitles. New print courtesy of Janus Films.

New York Press Review of The Firemen's Ball
"A sensational comedy of mismanagement, the 1967 classic—a fresh print of which screens at BAMcinématek from December 12-18—would become the director's final feature in his native Czechoslovakia." More

New York Magazine interviews Milos Forman
Forman reflects on The Firemen's Ball 40 years after its initial release. More

The New York Times Review of The Firemen's Ball
"That a director who sees things so bitterly and clearly can be this funny now may mean that we are in for a comic renaissance after all." More