Movies "Toyen" and "The Ferrari Dino Girl (Holka Ferrari Dino)" by Jan Němec

Date: 

Wednesday, April 23, 2014, 6:00pm to 8:00pm

Location: 

Barker Center 359 (Nebel Room)

Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures presents a unique opportunity to see two recent movies by Jan Němec, one of the key figures of the 1960s Czechoslovak New Wave Cinema.

 Toyen 
(2005, Czech Republic) 63min
With Zuzana Stivinova, Jan Budar.

In one of the most enigmatic films of his career, Nemec uses an abstract structure to create this portrait of revered Surrealist painter Toyen, whose ambiguously gendered name was given to her by fellow Surrealist Jindrich Styrsky. The film, true to the subject’s own style, is an idiosyncratic vision that revisits the most oppressive period of her life. At that time she lived in Prague and during World War II provided shelter to the artist Jindrich Heisler, who was evading calls to transports. Much like the artists’ lives, the film disintegrates into hallucinatory visions, attempting to reveal the images that fueled Toyen’s imagination through a series of associations. 

The Ferrari Dino Girl (Holka Ferrari Dino)
(2009, Czech Republic) 68min
With Karel Roden, Jan Budar, Tammy Sunquist, Jan Nemec.

While shooting a documentary about the exciting and hopeful period known as the Prague Spring, Nemec and his crew found themselves watching and filming in horror as the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in August 1968. Along with his friend, the titular Ferrari Dino Girl, and her boyfriend with diplomatic passport, Nemec smuggled out the resulting four reels of footage of the events for the rest of the world to see. This film returns to the escape route, dramatizing the director’s account of the days and presenting all the original footage shot during the invasion for the first time.

Wednesday April 23rd, 2014, from 6 to 8 pm, Barker Center 359 (Nebel Room).

The screening of these two films is organized in conjunction with Jan Němec’s retrospective at the Harvard Film Archive from April 19th to April 26thhttp://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2014aprjun/nemec.html#report

Toyen and The Ferrari Dino Girl are NOT among the films shown at the HFA.

The screenings presented by the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures/Harvard University are part of a touring retrospective INDEPENDENT OF REALITY: The Films of Jan Nemec, premiered by BAMcinématek in New York. The retrospective is produced by Comeback Company, curated by Irena Kovarova, and organized in partnership with the National Film Archive, Prague, Aerofilms, and Jan Nemec - Film.