Film

This three-part ballad, which often uses music to stand in for dialogue, remains the most perfect embodiment of Nemec’s vision of a world independent of reality. Mounting a defense of timid, inhibited, clumsy, and unsuccessful individuals, the three protagonists are the complete antithesis to the industrious heroes of socialist-realist aesthetics. Winning an award at the Locarno International Film Festival in 1968, the film cemented Nemec’s reputation as the kind of unrestrained nonconformist the Communist establishment considered the most dangerous to their ideology. It became the first release of New Line Cinema, which was originally established by Bob Shaye to distribute art-house titles.

Screens with

Mother and Son (1967)

RUN TIME: 10min

Digibeta

This absurdist tale about a doting mother of a brutal torturer was shot without permission of Czechoslovak authorities on a special commission from the Amsterdam Film Festival and later won the main award at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.