British label Second Run will release on Blu-ray Shivendra Singh Dungarpur's film
CzechMate: In Search of Jirí Menzel (2018). The release will be available for purchase on June 29.
Synopsis: Jiří Menzel's debut film Closely Observed Trains (Ostře sledované vlaky, 1966) made a profound impression on young film student Shivendra Singh Dungarpur. Years later, he invited Menzel to meet him in a Prague café - and so began a conversation and a friendship that has culminated in this epic, seven-and -a-half-hour film that not only explores the deceptively whimsical comic films of Jiří Menzel, but all of the artists who strove to make films that whispered subversion and rebellion often at the risk of their livelihood, or even their lives.
Expansive, affectionate and deeply passionate, CzechMate – In Search of Jiří Menzel is an extraordinary documentary film, a labour of love by archivist and filmmaker Dungarpur. Its depth and scale are unparalleled in the study of the Czechoslovak cinema.
Filmed over a period of seven years, Dungarpur and his team interviewed filmmakers, actors, crew members, writers, historians and critics who had been touched by the New Wave - including Věra Chytilová, Miloš Forman, Vojtěch Jasný, Ivan Passer, Ken Loach, Juraj Jakubisko, Jaromír Šofr, Andrzej Wajda, Dušan Hanák, Štefan Uher, Jan Němec, and Miroslav Ondříček among them.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
- CzechMate In Search of Jiri Menzel (2018) presented from a director-approved transfer
- Jiri Menzel short films:
- Prefabricated Houses (Domy z panel, 1960)
- Our Mr. Foerster Died (Um el nám pan Foerster, 1962)
- Image gallery
- Booklet featuring extracts from the diaries of filmmaker Shivendra Singh Dungarpur
- REGION-FREE