Eighteen films banned decades ago in Czechoslovakia are scheduled to be shown during this year’s Golden Horse Classic Film Festival, the organizers said yesterday.
The country’s “new wave” cinema dating from the 1960s through the 1970s will be showcased in an exhibition called The Golden Era of Czechoslovak Cinema.
Some of the avant garde films of the era to be shown feature the country’s brand of dark humor and surrealist fantasy, festival organizers said.
The country’s creative arts community was suppressed after Soviet forces in 1968 invaded what was then Czechoslovakia and crushed a brief period of political liberalization known as the Prague Spring.
The festival has scheduled 38 movies made during the Czech new wave, among them six animated shorts. Eighteen of the films were banned until Czechoslovakia in 1993 separated into the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic.
The films were well preserved during the authoritarian period, organizers said, adding that half of the movies have been restored and are to be shown in a digital 4K format.
Among the films to be shown are early works of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Amadeus director Milos Forman, who was an essential part of the country’s new wave period, and Jiri Menzel, who made dozens of films from 1960 to 2013.
Twenty-seven filmmakers from the Czech new wave are to be featured, organizer’s said.
The festival is to be held at Shin Kong Cinemas in Taipei’s Ximen District (西門) from July 22 to Aug. 11 and at the theater’s Taichung cinema from Aug. 3 to Aug. 14, with tickets going on sale today.
The classic festival is one of three annual events organized by the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival. The other two are the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival and the Golden Horse Fantastic Film Festival.
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