Karlovy Vary in the late 1980s. Three friends Pepe (Tomáš Hanák), Dědek (Milan Šteindler) and František (David Vávra) live an intense nightlife. While their days are filled with the boring, sometimes absurd working reality of late socialism, the nights are dedicated to decadence. Captivating foreigners and their own friends' partners draw the central trio into a tangle of love manipulations and momentary pleasures. But somewhere nearby lurks a virus that causes a disease whose name everyone is afraid to say and for which there is no cure yet.
Věra Chytilová's sharp, expressive directing style is complemented by the poetics of the Sklep Theatre, whose founders played the main roles in the film. The darkened grotesque connects the image of a society exhausted by the empty slogans of the regime with a portrait of friendship that, faced with a threat, disintegrates into cold egoism. During the unbridled parties, beauty, passion and the desire to conquer others turn into a trap from which there is no escape. As the second film in the Věra Chytilová profile, we present a grotesquely chilling film in a digitally restored version, with an expert introduction by the festival's chief dramaturge Michael Bukovanský.
Hoof here, hoof there
Comedy Drama Psychological
Czechoslovakia 1988 128 min
Directed by: Vera Chytilová
FEMMES FATALES. Fatal women. The kind that are not forgotten.
The sixth year of the Telegraph Film Festival belongs to women in front of and behind the camera. Film heroines and their authors. Directors, artists and illustrators of different generations. Some have already made a significant impact on the history of Czech film, others are coming with contemporary work and new themes. Each different. Each in their own way.
Are you planning to go to more events during the festival? It is definitely worth getting an accreditation. With it, you have free entry to all screenings and accompanying events, so you don't have to deal with each program separately and you save time and money. Plus, you can enjoy the festival comfortably and to the fullest. And we are thinking of students too! Those with a valid ISIC card have discounted ACCREDITATION !
Program subject to change.
