BAMcinématek presents ‘Independent of Reality: The Films of Jan Nemec’
First Full-career U.S. Retrospective of the Czechoslovak New Wave Director
From Friday, Nov. 8 through Thursday, Nov. 14, BAMcinématek will present “Independent of Reality: The Films of Jan Nemec,” the first full-career U.S. retrospective of Czechoslovak New Wave director Jan Nemec (b. 1936). Over the years, BAMcinématek has hosted a festival of New Czech Films on 12 separate occasions, presented the first U.S. retrospective of Frantisek Vlacil (“Marketa Lazarova”) in 2002, and premiered a new 35mm print of Vera Chytilova’s Daisies for a week-long run last summer.
Though Nemec (pronounced Niemetz) was an instrumental player in the Czechoslovak New Wave alongside Milos Forman, Jiri Menzel, Chytilova and others, the enfant terrible of the movement is relatively unknown stateside. This long-overdue survey of Nemec’s nearly 50 year career of uncompromising work features 12 films and a week-long run of “Diamonds of the Night” (1964) in a new 35mm print. The retrospective premieres at BAMcinématek and then embarks on a North American tour, curated by Irena Kovarova and produced by the Comeback Company in partnership with the National Film Archive, Prague and Aerofilms.
The triumvirate of Nemec, Forman and Menzel became the face of a new cinema rushing out of Czechoslovakia in the mid-1960s, with Chytilova, Ivan Passer and Juraj Herz following close behind. Though heralded as a new generation of masters abroad, their work did not always garner immediate recognition—Czechoslovak state authorities controlled film distribution to festivals and markets, and it could take two to three years before a film was available internationally.