Liberating Cinema Launch Proceedings
Masterclass and Workshop Online

Liberating Cinema hosted its launch as a charitable organisation between the 14^th and 15^th December 2020. The launch comprised a masterclass with renowned film director and auteur Amos Gitai on 14th December and a workshop on The Holocaust in the Czechoslovak New Wave on the 15th December. The launch was preceded by two digital film screenings, Rabin, The Last Day (Amos Gitai, Israel-France, 2015) in advance of the masterclass, courtesy of Amos Gitai, and Démanty noci/Diamonds of the Night (Jan Němec, Czechoslovakia, 1964) in advance of the workshop, courtesy of Second Run. Both events were conducted via the digital platform Zoom, they started at 6pm British time and ran for 70 and 100 minutes, respectively.

                                                                                                                               Amos Gitai

The masterclass with Amos Gitai began with Mr Gitai sharing with us the influence of his family, his studies in architecture, and his experience of the Yom Kippur and the ways in which they were instrumental in his turn towards film. Mr Gitai then continued by speaking about principles of film directing and the ways in which his range of professional experiences and encounters in film allowed him to create his unique cinematic space. He also discussed the significance of Rabin, The Last Day (2015), sharing his personal insights, the role of the archive in depicting the assassination, and the film’s politics, as well as the political significance of the film, in the context of contemporary Israel. Mr Gitai then opened the floor to discussion. The questions received by Liberating Cinema were asked on behalf of our audience members by the mediator and at the same time audience members joined to ask their questions. Experts in the audience joined from institutions like the British Film Institute, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Kent. The masterclass was concluded with the final word from Mr Gitai and a word of gratitude from the mediator and Liberating Cinema’s director Mina Radovic.

The masterclass can be viewed in full through the Liberating Cinema YouTube Channel above.

The workshop on The Holocaust in the Czechoslovak New Wave comprised a panel with three expert speakers Matěj Strnad, Head of Curators at Národní filmový archiv/Czech Film Archive, Prague, Šárka Sladovníková, Researcher at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague, and the author of the book The Holocaust in Czechoslovak and Czech Feature Films (Columbia UP, 2019), and Jonathan Owen, Independent Scholar (Toronto) and specialist in Czechoslovak cinema, European cinema, surrealism, and the avant-garde. The panel was introduced by Mina Radovic, chaired by Dr Steven D. Martz and followed by a Q&A session with the audience. The audience had the opportunity to ask their questions after each speaker finished their individual contribution in the workshop and the collective discussion which followed after all three speakers had concluded their presentations.  

                                                                                                                           Matěj Strnad

The workshop began with an introduction from the Liberating Cinema director Mina Radovic who then handed the floor to trustee board member Dr Steven Martz to introduce the speakers and mediate the workshop. The first speaker was Matěj Strnad who spoke about the archive as institution and the restoration practices of the archive in the restoration of Czechoslovak Film Heritage. Mr Strnad gave an introduction to the work of the Czech Film Archive (NFA) and why this institution is happy to see Czechoslovak film heritage being circulated. He then gave insight into approaches to digital restoration, with focus on Diamonds of the Night as a restored film but also drawing upon other relevant titles restored by NFA. He looked at the production and distribution research undertaken for Diamonds of the Night and specifics of the Diamonds of the Night restoration and their re-release.

                                                                                                                          Jonathan Owen

Next, Jonathan Owen provided the political, historical, and institutional context of the Czechoslovak New Wave, the aesthetic influences which informed it, and the key filmmakers and international connections which emerged from the New Wave. He spoke about significance of liberalisation, the Prague Spring, the Warsaw Pact invasion when it came to political and historical background and about the FAMU film school, changes in the film industry and censorship when it came to institutions. He elucidated the contributions of Hrabal, Kafka, surrealism, the avant-garde, and cinéma verité as aesthetic influences for the New Wave, then moved to define the contribution of the New Wave’s key filmmakers, including Forman, Chytilová, Němec, Menzel, Jireš, and Jakubisko. Finally, he gave us an insight into one of the most unexamined aspects of Czech film history, namely the international connections that were born with the New Wave, including the significance of Oscar successes, French responses to the New Wave, as well as Western co-productions with Czechoslovakia.

                                                                                                                      Šárka Sladovníková

After Dr Owen, Šárka Sladovníková examined the representations of the Holocaust in Czechoslovak cinema, with focus on the contribution of the New Wave, and she offered an exceptionally detailed study of the film Diamonds of the Night. She placed Diamonds of the Night in the context of 1960s Czechoslovak Cinema and then moved to examine its narration and aesthetics in detail. She spoke about the narrator, images, camera, the representations of time and the use of visual, aural, and figurative contrasts in the film, as well as its (non) representation of Jewishness and the Holocaust. Her presentation concluded the presentation part of the workshop and then moved to the Q&A session.

The Q&A session saw a variety of contributions from an expert and wider international audience consisting of audiovisual archivists, restoration specialists, emeritus scholars, film professors, filmmakers, doctoral researchers, students, and beloved cinephiles. Contributors joined from countries which included the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Serbia, Bosnia, France, Switzerland, and India, and from institutions including INTERFILM, the International Federation of Film Archives, Princeton University, Faculty of Dramatic Arts, University of Belgrade, and the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. One of the most fruitful conclusions drawn from the discussion lay in the discovery that Czechoslovak surrealism was so unique precisely because it used surrealism to look at realism, including subject like the Holocaust, an argument by Jonathan Owen which was complemented by the archival and cinematic analyses provided in the workshop by Matěj Strnad and Šárka Sladovníková, respectively. The masterclass was concluded with the summary of the workshop chair Dr Martz and the final word from Liberating Cinema’s director Mina Radovic. 

The workshop can be viewed in full through the Liberating Cinema YouTube Channel.