9 - 11 November 2008
Riverside Studios
Crisp Road, Hammersmith, London W6 9RL

Box Office: 020 8237 1111
www.riversidestudios.co.uk

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The partnership of director Jan Sverak and his father, the writer and actor, Zdenek Sverak, is best known through their 1997 Oscar winning success with Kolya. This was not an isolated collaboration and they had previously worked on Elementary School in 1991 (also Oscar-nominated) and the later Dark Blue World, which tells the story of the Czech airmen who fought with the RAF during the Battle of Britain.

Zdenek Sverak, who made his film debut in the late 1960s, is best known as one of the leading figures in the Jara Cimrman Theatre, which has been entertaining Czech audiences with its comic, absurd, and mystifying productions for nearly 40 years. The theatre was the brainchild of Sverak and his colleague, Ladislav Smoljak, and together they made a number of their screenplays into films in the 1980s. Sverak also worked with Jiri Menzel (Closely Observed Trains, Academy Award for Best Foreign Film 1967), writing the screenplays for his films My Sweet Little Village (also Oscar-nominated) and The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin, adapted from the classic comic novel by Vladimir Voinovich.

Jan Sverak began his career by winning a Student Oscar for his short film The Oil Gobblers and has since become the most successful of the post-1990 generation of Czech directors. His films range from the science fiction allegory Accumulator 1 to the low budget road movie The Ride and, most recently, another collaboration with his father, Empties, a highly successful comedy in which Sverak senior plays a retired teacher, who finds casual work looking after the bottle returns in a local supermarket.

Together with The Elementary School, which was directly based on Zdenek Sverak’s childhood memories, and Kolya, set in the 1980s, Empties completes a loose trilogy and a personal ‘history’ of the Czech experience embodied in Zdenek Sverak’s scripts and central performances.

While the older Sverak has been described as the best screenwriter in the Czech Republic, his son is internationally recognised as one of the best directors. The precision and timing of his work is clearly apparent in Kolya and perhaps, even more, in the lesser known Empties.

The Sveraks’ films ideally represent those qualities for which Czech cinema is best known – its human insight, observation, and use of comic irony. This short tribute will include discussions with Jan and Zdenek Sverak about their best known films and a discussion with UK-based producer Eric Abraham, who has co-produced no less than four of them.

Peter Hames

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JAN SVERAK

·          Space Odyssey II (1986)

·          The Oil Gobblers (1988)

·          Elementary School (1991)

·          The Ride (1994)

·          Accumulator 1 (1994)

·          Kolya (1996)

·          Dark Blue World (2001)

·          Daddy (2004)

·          Empties (2007)

ZDENEK SVERAK

Screenplays:

Marecek, Pass me a Pen! (1976)

Long Live Ghosts (1977)

Run Waiter Run (1980)

Three Veterans (1984)

Dissolved and Let Out (1984)

My Sweet Little Village (1985)

Un Uncertain Season (1988)

Elementary School (1991)

The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin (1993)

Accumulator 1 (1994)

Kolya (1996)

Selected acting credits:

Crime in the Night Club (1968), Sir, You Are a Widow (1970), Joachim, Put It in the Machine (1974), Seclusion Near a Forest (1976), Marecek, Pass Me a Pen! (1977), Ball Lightning (1978), Run Waiter Run (1980), Calamity (1982), Jara Cimrman Lying, Asleep (1983), The Snowdrop Festival (1983), Dissolved and Let Out (1984), What’s Wrong with You, Doctor? (1985), My Sweet Little Village (1985), Like Poison (1985), An Uncertain Season (1988), Skylarks on a String (1990), Elementary School (1991), Accumulator 1 (1994), Kolya (1996), Empties (2007).

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PROGRAMME

FRIDAY 7 NOVEMBER 6.40 PM
DADDY

(Dir Jan Sverak,Martin Dostal / Scr Martin Dostal, Jan Sverak / Czech Republic 2004 / 92 min)

A loving and humorous portrait of the artistic and private life of Zdenek Sverak, writer, actor, lyricist, screenwriter, and father. Following Sverak’s progress from his childhood to provincial small town Zatec, where he started as a teacher, to his career in fi lms and the Jara Cimrman Theatre, the  insights into both his private and artistic lives are intercut with extracts people who have been infl uential in his life. The film also explores his collaboration with his son and reveals a painful creative crisis during their work on Empties, all the more delicate because professional approaches, opinions, and attitudes were entwined with family relations.

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FRIDAY 7 NOVEMBER 8.30 PM

EMPTIES

(Dir Jan Sverak / Scr Zdenek Sverak / Czech Republic-United Kingdom-Denmark 2007 / 104min)
Introduction and Q&A Jan & Zdenek Sverak

In this comic love story about a man facing facing old age schoolteacher Josef finds he no longer understands his pupils and decides to resign. However, unaccustomed to a life of inactivity, he opts for a succession of part-time jobs, including cycle messenger and supervisor of the bottle return counter in a supermarket. He fi nds an interesting new world (supplemented by continuing erotic fantasies), from which his wife is excluded. Arguably the Sveraks’ best film, this sophisticated and perceptive comedy is full of the lowkey observation characteristic of the best of Czech cinema – unpretentious, involving, and apparently effortless. The biggest box offi ce success in the Czech Republic since the fall of Communism, Empties crosses the generation divide with its traditional narrative virtues and a characteristically taciturn performance from Sverak senior.

Cast: Zdenek Sverak, Tatiana Vilhelmova, Daniela Kolarova, Alena Vranova, Jiri Machacek.

Awards: Czech Lions 2007 (Best Director, Best Screenplay, Audience Award), Special Jury mention for Screenplay, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2007.

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SATURDAY 8 NOVEMBER 4 PM

THE LIFE AND EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF PRIVATE IVAN CHONKIN

(Dir Jiri Menzel / Scr Zdenek Sverak / Czech Republic-France-Italy-United Kingdom 1994 / 106min)

A grotesque tragi-comedy by Oscar-winning director Jiri Menzel based on the famous satirical Russian novel by Vladimir Voinovich. Prior to Russia’s entry into WWII Ivan Chonkin, private in the Red army and simple-minded Russian guy, is sent to guard a broken-down enemy plane in a remote village. Forgotten by everyone and unaware that Russia is now at war he eventually moves in with his lover Nura, the post-mistress. When his neighbours accuse him of being a spy it sets off a spiral of events reminiscent of Catch 22. Absurdity together with criticism of Stalinism and Soviet bureaucracy is revealed through comic encounters with representatives of the Secret Police and the Soviet army in Chonkin’s fi ght for justice.

Cast: Gennadi Nazarov, Zoya Buriak, Vladimir Ilyin, Marian Labuda.

Awards: Gold Medal, Venice International Film Festival 1994, The Charlie Chaplain Prix du Publique, International Festival of Comedy, Vevey 1995.

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SATURDAY 8 NOVEMBER 6.05 PM

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

(Dir Jan Sverak / Scr Zdenek Sverak / Czechoslovakia

1991 / 100min)

WWII has just ended and Eda and his mates are back in a single-sex school in the Prague suburbs where they have given their teacher a nervous breakdown. New teacher Igor is half-dictator, half-hero and he quickly gets both their attention and their undying admiration, which is not altered by his philandering with the female population. Eda can’t help comparing Igor with his own seemingly unheroic father. Zdenek Sverak has created an autobiographical mosaic of his childhood memories, recalling the time when boys are still children but already perceive the adult world with great intensity. A fi lm full of humour, secrets and compassion for human weakness.

Cast: Jan Triska, Zdenek Sverak, Libuse Safrankova,

Rudolf Hrusinsky.

Awards: Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Film 1992.

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SATURDAY 8 NOVEMBER 8.05 PM

KOLYA

(Dir Jan Sverak / Scr Zdenek Sverak / Czech Republic-France-United Kingdom 1996 / 108 min)
Introduction and Q&A Jan & Zdenek Sverak

The 55-year-old skirt-chasing bachelor Louka, a former cellist with the Czech Philharmonic, is reduced to playing at funerals. Struggling with debt he agrees to a marriage of convenience with a Russian expecting to see little of his new wife. However when she defects to the West to be with her lover, Louka is left to answer to the authorities as well as care for her fi veyear old son, Kolya. Not speaking each other’s language, it takes time and patience for the cultural barriers between this unlikely father-son duo to fall (the source of much of the fi lm’s humour) but when they do their place is taken by an unbreakable bond. Meanwhile the political changes of of 1989 are taking place around them.

Cast: Zdenek Sverak, Andrei Chalimon, Libuse Safrankova, Ondrej Vetchy, Stella Zazvorkova.

Awards: Golden Globe Award & Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film 1997, Czech Lions 1997 (Best Film, Best Director).

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SUNDAY 9 NOVEMBER 2 PM

THREE VETERANS

(Dir Oldrich Lipsky / Scr Zdenek Sverak, Oldrich Lipsky / Czechoslovakia 1984 / 93min)
In Czech with Engl.subt.

A humorous fairy tale about human vanity, greed and the desire for happiness based on Jan Werich’s story. Three penniless ex-soldiers are wandering the world until a chance meeting with elves provides them with three magical gifts. When one of them falls in love with the vain and greedy princess Bosana they loose everything. Fortunately elves and a magic fruit will help them to get the gifts back and discover the most important thing in the world. Featuring a familiar song, the longest nose in the world and an excellent cast list, this is a family classic. All tickets £3.50.

Cast: Rudolf Hrusinsky, Jan Cepek, Josef Somr, Julius Satinsky.

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SUNDAY 9 NOVEMBER 4 PM

MY SWEET LITTLE VILLAGE

(Dir Jiri Menzel / Scr Zdenek Sverak / Czech Republic 1985 / 87min)

At the heart of this comedy is a Laurel and Hardy-like pair; Otik, a simple minded trucker’s assistant, and his boss Pavek. Otik tries hard to please his exasperated partner who becomes the laughing stock of his mates thanks to Otik’s constant blunders. At the end of his tether, Pavek requests a different partner while Otik, hurt, accepts a job offer from a crooked politician who wants to get hold of his cottage. Having discovered the plot, Pavek comes to his friend’s aid. Further charm is added to this life-enhancing piece by the other village inhabitants - a doctor who regularly wrecks his car while admiring the scenery, a romantic teenager with a crush on a schoolteacher, and an adulterous housewife just one step ahead of her hot-headed husband.

Cast: Janos Ban, Marian Labuda, Rudof Hrusinsky, Petr Cepek.

Awards: Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Film 1987, Special Jury Award at Montreal World Film Festival 1986.

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SUNDAY 9 NOVEMBER 5.50 PM

THE OIL GOBBLERS

(Dir Jan Sverak / Scr Jan Sverak / Czechoslovakia 1988 / 21min)

A team of scientists travels to Northern Bohemia to investigate a new animal species - Petroleus Mostensis, the mud-loving oil gobblers, in this inventive mockumentary. Awards: Student Academy Award for Best Foreign Film 1989.

SCREENED TOGETHER WITH THE RIDE.

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THE RIDE

(Dir Jan Sverak / Scr Martin Dostal, Jan Sverak / Czech Republic 1994 / 90min)

Disenchanted with their predictable lives, two thirtysomething buddies set off on a journey through the Czech countryside. They hope to bring some excitement into their routine by imitating their American heroes. Things get complicated when they are joined by a beautiful hitchhiker who is pursued by her jealous lover. The summery atmosphere darkens as the friends play with love and death. A homage to Easy Rider, this fresh and humorous road movie, supported by an excellent soundtrack from Czech band Buty, has achieved cult status among young Czech audiences.

Cast: Anna Geislerova, Radek Pastrnak, Filip Renc, Jakub Spalek

Awards: Czech Lions 1994 (Best Cinematography, Best Soundtrack),

Grand Prize and Audience Award, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 1995

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SUNDAY 9 NOVEMBER 8.05 PM

DARK BLUE WORLD

(Dir Jan Sverak / Scr Zdenek Sverak / Czech Republic-United Kingdom 2001 / 113min)

+Introduction and Q&A Eric Abraham, producer



Two Czech pilots, Franta and Karel, escape Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia to join the Royal Air Force and fi ght in the Battle of Britain. Their love for the same woman (Tara Fitzgerald) is the ultimate test of their friendship. Stunning, frighteningly realistic aerial warfare sequences alternate with this love story, which is narrated by Franta from within a communist prison. Closely based on the real-life experience of Czech

fi ghter pilots, who survived the confl ict, only to be persecuted by the post-war Communist regime when they returned home, this is a romantic drama of heroism and self-sacrifice.

Cast: Ondrej Vetchy, Krystof Hadek, Tara Fitzgerald, Charles Dance, Oldrich Kaiser.

Awards: Czech Lions 2002 (Best Director, Audience Award)

 
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CALENDAR

FRIDAY 7 NOVEMBER

6.40 PM DADDY

8.30 PM EMPTIES + Introduction and Q&A Jan & Zdenek Sverak

SATURDAY 8 NOVEMBER

4 PM THE LIFE AND EXTRAORDINARY

ADVENTURES OF PRIVATE IVAN CONKIN

6.05 PM ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

8.05 PM KOLYA + Introduction and Q&A Jan & Zdenek Sverak

SUNDAY 9 NOVEMBER

2 PM THREE VETERANS

4 PM MY SWEET LITTLE VILLAGE

5.50 PM THE OIL GOBBLERS + THE RIDE

8.05 PM DARK BLUE WORLD + Introduction and Q&A

Eric Abraham, producer

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Admission:

One film £7.50 (£6.50 concs.)

Two films £10 (£8 concs.) excluding the family screening on Sunday.

Sunday 2 pm screening £3.50 all.

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Organised by the Czech Centre London in collaboration with Biograf Jan Sverak, Portobello Pictures and Riverside Studios