This year’s Golden Horse Classic Film Festival in Taiwan will screen 18 films that were banned decades ago in what was then Czechoslovakia, the organizers said Saturday.
The 2022 festival will highlight “The Golden Era of Czechoslovak Cinema,” a New Wave period dating back to the 1960s and 1970s, when avant-garde versions of dark humor and surrealist fantasy came to life, the organizers said.
The creative strides came to a halt, however, when Soviet Union-led armed forces invaded what was then Czechoslovakia to crush a brief period of political liberalization, known as the “Prague Spring,” and force the country back under Soviet control.
The 2022 Golden Horse Classic Film Festival will highlight that era by screening 38 movies made during the decade — 32 feature films and 6 animated shorts — 18 of which were banned until Czechoslovakia separated in 1993 into two independent countries, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic.
While the 38 films were locked away during the authoritarian period, most of them were well preserved, the festival organizers said, adding that half of the 38 scheduled films will be screened in 4K digitally restored format.
The 38 films are the works of 27 filmmakers of Czechoslovakia’s New Wave movie era, including Jirí Menzel, Miloš Forman, and Vera Chytilová, as well as animators like Jirí Trnka and Jan Švankmajer, the festival organizers said.
The annual Golden Horse Classic Film Festival will be held at the Ximen branch of Shin Kong Cinemas in Taipei from July 22 to Aug. 11 and at the Taichung branch from Aug. 3 to Aug. 14, with ticket sales starting June 19.
The classic festival is one of three annual events organized by the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival Executive Committee. The other two are the Golden Horse Fantastic Film Festival and the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel