The Melbourne Cinémathèque & ACMI present
Birds, Orphans and Fools
Co-presented by the Czech and Slovak Film Festival of Australia
When
Wed 5 Oct 2022
Shot under highly straitened circumstances, and featuring astonishing cinematography from Igor Luther and a score by the great Zdeněk Liška, Jakubisko’s third feature, written with Karel Sidon (latterly the Chief Rabbi of the Czech Republic), is a mosaic-like parable set in an undefined space and time. Nonetheless, its crazy world without ideals, and filled with violence, cynicism and hopelessness, surely references Czechoslovakia after August 1968. A work of great, fluid, unfettered exuberance at odds with the concurrent despondent mood of the Czechoslovak nation, it remains the quintessential Jakubisko film. Restored digital print courtesy of the Slovak Film Institute.
Also screening on Wed 5 October
Program
Gallows Bacchanalias, Fractious Fairy-Tales and the Rule of Three: The Cinema of Juraj Jakubisko (Wed 5 – Wed 15 Oct)
Birds, Orphans and Fools (1969) – Wed 5 Oct, 7pm
Sitting on a Branch, Enjoying Myself (1989) – Wed 5 Oct, 8.35pm
Perinbaba (1985) – Wed 12 Oct, 7pm
The Prime of Life (1967) – Wed 12 Oct, 8.40pm
About the program
Gallows Bacchanalias, Fractious Fairy-Tales and the Rule of Three: The Cinema of Juraj Jakubisko (Wed 5 – Wed 15 Oct)
The irrepressible Juraj Jakubisko (1938–) represents the baroque vanguard of the Czechoslovak New Wave’s Slovak contingent. After assisting on early works by fellow students Jaromil Jireš and Věra Chytilová at Prague’s FAMU film school, Jakubisko soon made his own mark with a succession of acclaimed, flamboyant and provocative films which saw him dubbed “the Slovak Fellini” at the 1968 Venice Film Festival, but which also earnt him the sustained wrath of his nation’s censors, with three of his four 1960s features shelved until after 1989’s Velvet Revolution, including the extraordinary Birds, Orphans and Fools that opens this season.
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About Melbourne Cinémathèque
Australia's longest-running film society, Melbourne Cinémathèque screens significant works of international cinema in the medium they were created, the way they would have originally screened.
Melbourne Cinémathèque is self-administered, volunteer-run, not-for-profit and membership-driven.
