VÉRA CHYTILOVÁ | CZECHOSLOVAKIA 1979, 96m | 2:30PM, SUNDAY 29 JULY
Chytilová’s unwavering moral stance and penetrating analysis of creation and destruction, as evident in Panelstory, would undoubtedly stand out in the film production of any country.
– Andrew James Horton, Kinoeye
This scathing and often very funny rubbishing of life under the Czech regime of Normalisation (1969–1987) has had scant exposure abroad; the local authorities did their utmost to suppress it domestically for many years, too. Working once more with Jaromír Šofr, her cameraman from Ceiling and A Bagful of Fleas, Véra Chytilová presents a frantic, wide-angled, noisy mosaic of life at a monstrous, underdone, debris-ridden high-rise housing estate on Prague’s outskirts, cocking a vicious snook at its Potemkin village pretensions to community-building.
Courtesy of the National Film Archive in Prague
Czech with English subtitles
Unrated 15+
Co-presented with the Czech and Slovak Film Festival and the Australian Cinémathèque.
This is a free screening taking place at the Australian Cinémathèque, GoMA, as part of the retrospective Original Sins: Resistance and Feminism in the Avant-Garde Cinema of Véra Chytilová.
