The film that announced the Czech New Wave to the world, Jiří Menzel’s beloved debut is a humanist comedy of errors and a minor-key ode to rebellion. Adapted from Bohumil Hrabal’s novel of the same name, Closely Observed Trains unfolds in a provincial railway station in the last days of the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. Teenage dispatcher Miloš (Václav Neckář) is less concerned with the ongoing war than with losing his virginity; meanwhile, the tension between ribald railwayman Hubička (Josef…

Adapted from the breakout novel by the great Milan Kundera, The Joke is one of Czech cinema’s most piercing political statements. During the Stalinist era, happy-go-lucky student Ludvík (Josef Somr) sends his girlfriend a postcard featuring an idle satirical remark, only to see his life fall apart as a result: expelled from university and the Communist Party, imprisoned and forced into military service. Two decades later, Ludvík returns to his hometown and hatches a desperate plan to get revenge on…

Ester Krumbachová was the hidden mastermind behind the Czech New Wave, contributing costumes, set design, and screenplays for some of the most celebrated films of the era. This new restoration of her sole directorial effort shines a fresh light on her sadly underutilised talents behind the camera. Murdering the Devil is a surreal, feminist fairy tale, in which an unnamed woman (Jiřina Bohdalová), desperate for companionship, begins wooing the gluttonous boor Theodore Devil (Vladimír Menšík) – only to find that…

Alexander Abaturov’s climate crisis documentary is a dreamlike but gripping account of a community battling forces beyond their control. In the Sakha Republic in northeastern Siberia, heatwaves have led to ever more devastating wildfires that ravage the vast subarctic forests of the taiga. In 2021, the village of Shologon was threatened by an encroaching blaze – but no help was forthcoming from the Russian state. Shologon lies within a “control zone”: the official term for areas considered too remote to…