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News Release

September 19, 2006

U of G Hosts International Film Series

U of G’s fourth annual international film series, "Beyond Hollywood," begins Sept. 24 with the 1967 film Capricious Summer by Czech director Jiri Menzel. Film introductions begin at 6:45 p.m. and screenings begin at 7 p.m in the Florence Partridge Room on the third floor of the McLaughlin Library. Discussion and light refreshments will follow each film. All screenings are free and open to the public.

The theme of the fall series is a spotlight on Czech new wave films. “That was a movement in the 1960s when films from Czechoslovakia were particularly exciting because censorship and a lot of political repression were relaxed,” said English and theatre studies professor Paul Salmon, film series programmer. “There were so many films in the ’60s from Czechoslovakia; it was kind of a golden age for Czech cinema, then when the Russian tanks rolled into Prague in 1968, it put a halt to a flowering of creativity.”

Capricious Summer, winner of the top prize at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, is the tale of three middle-aged friends whose lives are upset by a young female stranger.

The Oct. 1 screening will feature the 1963 film Black Peter by director Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Amadeus). It’s a coming-of-age tale that captures the emotional turbulence of youth in a way that is both revealing of Czech society in the ’60s and universal in its appeal.

“One of the surprise favourites of last year's Beyond Hollywood series was Vera Chitylova’s Daisies, a landmark Czech new wave film by one of the movement's few female practitioners,” said Salmon. Chytilova’s 1970 film Fruit of Paradise will be shown Oct. 15. The film is a stylized, surrealistic account of a vacationing couple, based on the story of Adam and Eve.

On Oct. 22, the 1968 film The Joke, directed by Jaromil Jires, will be shown. It’s the story of a young man sentenced to years of hard labour for sending a postcard with a humorous reference to Trotsky.

The fall series will conclude Nov. 5 with a screening of Pearls of the Deep collaboratively directed by Jiri Menzel, Jan Nemec and Chytilova. “This omnibus film provides a fitting close to the series, as it presents five short cinematic gems by the top Czech new wave filmmakers,” said Salmon.

For more information about the series, contact Salmon at psalmon@uoguelph.ca.