Please note: This was screened in July 2025
In this spirited comedy, an aimless young man’s search for purpose, sex and self-identity becomes a microcosm of Czechoslovakian life amid the height of the Cold War.
Noted Czech director Věra Chytilová was famous for invoking the ire of the authorities. Outcast from her home country for several years, Chytilová, regarded as one of the leading lights of the Czech New Wave movement, made a triumphant return with this subversive takedown of Communist era oppression and social mores.
Bolek Polívka, in his first of multiple collaborations with the director, portrays Honza, a college drop-out who becomes a train conductor only to be waylaid by the attentions of three separate women leading to an outrageous finale.
Ostensibly a ribald sex farce, Kalamita (translated as ‘Calamity’) is in fact a sneak satirical attack on bureaucracy, disguising its salient points via the timeless medium of the coming-of-age narrative. Honza’s journey to self-discovery is framed as a reaction to the former Czechoslovakia’s “normalisation” era. This resulted in a difficult production that was subject to much oversight from the authorities.
A 4K digital restoration carried out by Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in collaboration with the Národní filmový archiv, Prague and the Czech Film Fund in UPP and Soundsquare, with funding by Mrs. Milada Kučerová and Mr. Eduard Kučera.
Presented by co-curator Cressida Williams as part of Other Ways of Seeing, with support from BFI Awarding Funds from National Lottery.