"I got into it by accident." "Really." "Up to that time, at least in my dreams," "I was going to be a pianist." "And I really worked hard at it." "Only the good Lord didn't let that happen, which I didn't want to accept..." "I thought I could manage it, I even completed my piano studies at the conservatory, in order to attend the Music Academy." "But quite soon Prof. Rauch dissuaded me." "I came to him to show what I could do, I'd prepared a concerto by Schumann." "And he said: "Miss Vihanová, you'd be better off going home and cooking soup."" "Funny guy, a tad cynical... but he was right in saying, that woman is ordinary, and if I don't tell it to her straight, she'll keep pushing herself needlessly with difficult exams at the Academy of Music." "I wanted to go there, attend his classes, which is why I tried out for him." "But he was right, he told me the truth." "Of course I had guessed it, for I completed my studies at the conservatory late." "My mum said: "First you finish your regular studies, then you can attend the conservatory."" "When I left the conservatory, I was 25." "And pianists are as common as dogs." "So it was hopeless." "I found myself in Prague, not knowing what to do." "I was to have studied aesthetics and music theory in Brno." "So I got into television, which was in its infancy then, into music broadcasting, where I was an assistant." "I was their Girl Friday, and they would change the titles." "For Kašlík it was quite interesting" "I was Assistant Director for the Comedians, also Podvalová when she did Marty, the Makropulous Affair." "That was interesting." "I said to myself, I'm really running around like an assistant, sure enough." "But I wasn't aware there was a school that could get me a higher position." "I went on some interviews." "At the time Pøemysl Freiman was the head of the Directors Commission." "He said:" ""Well, you're an assistant, alright, but to be a director, you'll need schooling." So I said: "Okay, I'll go to school."" "So I applied at the Prague Academy of Motion Picture Arts, which I didn't know existed." "I never went to see movies." "Film hadn't interested me." "I played piano." "So it was really, really by chance." "The entrance exams must have been easy." "I kept saying I don't want to do film," "I want to go back into television." "Klos opened it to me, I went the first yearjust to audit, because I really didn't know anything." "And I had to take the entrance exams again the next year, that was 1959 with Prof. Wasserman." "And Jakubisko was there, Cvrèek, Borek..." "Who else was there?" "Petr Kadlec- it wasn't divided into sections, not until your third year, you could choose documentary." "But we were in narrative film." "Prof. Wasserman was very human, friendly." "I have the feeling that the training at the time wasn't the best." "But when he talked with us he would really pay attention and work with us on our ideas." "It was more of a human approach than a professorial approach, which Vávra had." "I liked him a lot and we would even visit" "Prof. Wasserman at home." "We'd have discussions at my home and I'd cook bean soup." "It was on a different level than ordinary school." "Because I'm not inclined toward comedies, after I graduated I worked with Vávra." "I was interested in editing, which took them some time to open as a subject at school." "I don't want to name any names, but the department was kind of lazy, delayed." "But I really enjoyed editing." "So I started offering to cut everybody's films." "I actually graduated with a degree in editing." "I prefer, or like best, cutting my own material." "Which is controversial." "When something is controversial, the editor should modify it with other material, right?" "When I'm cutting, I'm too authorial, I put too much of myself into it." "So for others, I'm practically useless an an editor." "But I've always cut my own films." "In the second year there was documentary." "Prof. Lehovec." "It was horrible." "Mine was a joke." "By chance in that same year were Chytilová, Schorm, and Jirka Menzel." "Vìra Chytilová's film is fantastic, it has tension, rhythm, even structure." "Evald Schorm's film Dam, well, he didn't acquiesce much to the ideology of that time." "Their documentaries were fantastic." "But mine... a joke." "I said, I'm not going to make a documentary, forget it." "But then?" "I said to myself I'll never make another documentary film, and when I did, it was a mistake." "What am I looking for here?" "After all these years?" "An answer?" "In comparison to today's students, who go to school only rarely, and consider it a waste of time, we were all together in one place, focussed." "In the morning a person would go to school, not necessarily because they had a lecture." "We'd go into the studios, or projection rooms, because they were always showing something." "Or into the editing room and help out there." "Eight o'clock:" "School." "Noon:" "Lunch." "Then:" "School, sometimes till 3 a.m." "Brousil's Friday screenings ended at 3 a.m. Those were eye-openers:" "Chabrol, Truffaut," "Antonioni." "And I finally caught on, how films were made, why they were made." "And how everything plays a role, the tempo, perhaps it was my musical education, which certainly helped in editing." "It really began to interest me." "Sitting on the steps, watching Vìra Chytilová debate Evald Schorm-we were all there together, all of us following what the others were doing." "That was the real education, better than some theoretical lectures." "Perceiving, absorbing all the possible devices which film has." "Because it has so many." "Not just the image, but everything." "For me, above all the manipulation with sound." "I had the feeling that film was a special world of its own, maybe not Krška's films, or mine, but the style and the testimony which a person accepts." "Not in the case of Helge, for me he's too- well, his message comes across powerfully, but I've always thought that the artistry in fantasy is somewhat limiting." "His films seem a bit too loose for me." "A bit too accented, even if I don't like films without philosophy." "I've always thought that I have to know why I'm shooting a film, for someone might disagree with its philosophy." "But in his case the ideas were so accented, it turned me off." "I would like to make the fantasy and the expression via the camera a little less direct..." "it did not seem authentic to me." " What's your name?" " Fati Farari." "You know, I don't have you recorded anywhere." " Which school are you in?" " HAMU." "Music School?" "I can see you speak good Czech." " Where are you from, comrade?" " Africa." "Africa?" "Fine." "Ok boys, heave ho!" "What's a black guy's expression when he hits the water?" "Cut it out." "He can't swim." "I told you, you're crazy." " Hey, it's all in fun, right?" " But he can swim underwater." " He can swim great." " You know, in the ocean..." " Guys, he's been in there for a while." " That's some suspicious character." " You asses, he's drowning!" " Guys, hurry, go get him!" "Hurry!" "We were asked to work with the screenwriting section." "And there was a student, whose name was Hayk Mardirossian, an Armenian, who wrote that story." "I liked it, first because it had a piano in it, and conscience, that inclination to a person who is different, that spoke to me, I thought it was a nice story." "You're not going to care that we're going to have a young kid living here, a black?" "You're not going to care he's going to need..." "Good God, just shut up." " I should shut up?" "!" "Say something stupid you've thought of, sure..." "Live here another year, and it will be your black kid!" "I guess it's something like what Prof. Wasserman said, something in one's skin." "I don't like it, it really bothers me when a person's difference is the reason for something bad to happen." "That's not a revolt, to take a person for who they are and to think of them in that way and not another." "What's going on?" "What's going on?" "You see those hands?" "That's the qualifying question." "There's your ID card." "Keep moving, keep moving." "Don't stand there like that." "The Czech nation!" "I always said it would go under." "According to my way of life, sure, three marriages, I've noticed how people look at me differently, like there's something wrong." "It's not like it made me depressed." "But those glances..." "To fit into the herd and adapt, I was always against that." "And that's where those themes come from." "Mister, wait, surely you're not going to walk." "I'll get the elevator." "Isn't today lovely?" "I heard you're moving out, that's a shame." "All of us here liked you so much." "At the time, there was animosity here against blacks." "Black music, the international exchange shops only for foreigners, dating girls, etc." "And the casting was a problem, the Association of African Students even sued me." "I settled it somehow..." "Also the fact that he had to be musical, not necessarily play the piano, but the Association of African Students forbid me to cast an African, so I made my own expeditions, student dormitories, parties, etc., until I met that fellow, a Cuban," "who studied Physical Education." "He was a good actor, physically as well." "But he didn't know how to play piano." "So I took him home and we'd practise that chromatic fantasy and the fugue." "And he followed my movements perfectly." "It really looks like he's playing." "There's no cut there, those are his fingers." "Our parents have given us not only life, but also death." "I can tell you no more." "And tonight speak through your Bach." "The contact with Prof. Vávra, at least on my side, was of admiration, for he connected with our class." "Vìra Chytilová had already made her first films, and we were excited to work with Vávra, at least I was." "But we certainly didn't have the same friendly relationship that we'd shared with Wasserman." "With Vávra, it was professor to student." "Why he took me on the film Romance for Bugle, I'll never know." "But it was clear he wanted to work with young people." "He cast ingenues in their first feature-length film." "He saw that I was hard-working, because I was always at school, busy with one thing or another." "He even gave me the screenplay to read, he wanted my opinions on it." "And he gave me a free hand in casting." "I went to Bratislava, saw Mr. Chudík, and chose Zuzana Cigánová." "I travelled the country and photographed people..." "I really learned a lot about how to control a film crew, something you don't learn in school." "Sometimes you're on your knees, sometimes it's friendly, but it's a profession that unfortunately requires orders, and whether you're pretending or not, you have to run a crew of 40 people," "tell them the way it's going to be." "Working on that film was good for me." "Hold onto your hat, it won't sit flat." "This is a journey of escape, a journey of love, of passion, the wind moves your hair to suit its fashion." "And here's a lass, it's come to pass there's never been a greater romance." "Join our dance!" "If you like it, watch nice, if you don't, watch it twice!" "Ho Ho Hey!" "Our merry-go-round is underway!" "There was always a consultation." "But the non-actors, like Zuzana's mother," "I found her in the circus." "And in Cheb I found the guy who plays the father." "Those people accepted what I asked of them." "I felt really great about their co-operation." " Hey, but I have to go now." " Just stay a minute." "No, I can't." "They'll be looking for me." "I just came to say goodbye." "Because of my position on that film, I lived pretty well." "Not just because I took my assistant Milan Jonáš as my husband, who really knew how to work with actors." "He had studied drama at the conservatory in Brno." "And he'd had an internship with Louis Jouvet in France." "Being in close contact with interesting people, like Václav Renè, and there was the Brno group..." "Renè had been in prison." "So he didn't get to go back into theatre." "I met him when he was riding a garbage truck." "He took it in stride, all the bad that the regime tried to wear him down with." "He knew his position, that he was against those in charge, who were criminals." "So he took it in stride." "I took him for Bugle, and there he began to feel that again there were possibilities." "Vávra wasn't against it, so Renè left his truck and joined me on Romance for Bugle." "His ability to work with actors, on the spot, his organisational abilities, were unmistakeable." "Vávra noticed it, and used him on Witchhammer, where he did absolutely brilliant work." "He was rewarded... because his work was so good, in that film about criminals by Šebor and Bora, he could direct his piece himself." "I don't want to wait anymore." "The priest is next." "She's not running away from you." "And the officials say she has to be of age." "There's enough time in the winter, isn't there?" "There won't be any work." "Don't worry." "I'll take care of it." "Ok?" "Sure, I promised her to you." "Zelenka was the editor on Bugle, an older guy, used to old approaches." "The final cut isn't mine, but I did sit in the editing room, with Vávra." "And we talked over the composition and the possibilities of the editing." "The editing is different from Vávra's earlier and later works." "For example the scene where they're putting the boards of the merry-go-round together, or where the chains are, that detailed shot of Cigánová, the chains play a role there- how the people are tied up." "He was quite open." "But he was always the final authority." "Teresa!" "Teresa!" "We travelled to Africa for the first time, to the Dakar Arts Festival, which had chosen my film, it won a prize, and after that I travelled through France, it also won a prize in Tours, And I was awarded by a film club in" "Germany, to come to do an internship in Bavaria." "I said yes, and was there for half a year." "I was an assistant but got to be the editor for a series of French documentaries mapping the chateaux of the Loire, they had to be cut to a certain length, it was quite interesting for me." "They didn't enrich me or change me but I used the time there well." "I wanted to shoot a narrative film." "But I'm not able to write anything on my own, I'm able to kibbitz, add bits, but not put anything of my own together..." "until I found that Køenek story," "A Squandered Sunday." "I'm not sure why-it was different." "That was why-it was different, and work on the film went quickly." "Though the main character is a soldier I realised that it is a human problem, even though his thinking is influenced by his military training and position." "But basically, it could happen to anyone, a baker for instance- it might not make as good a film though." "Køenek had been an army officer, and one of his colleagues shot himself." "It's the story of his friend, that Arnošt." "And later when we got to do it in Josefov, that also played a role, the closed atmosphere of the town." "I'd been there a few times with Køenek." "The knowledge of the background is his." "Is something unclear to you?" " To me?" " Yes, you." "Everything's clear to me, Comrade Lieutenant-Colonel." "Even the order for comrades to better their math skills?" "On Monday you will report to me." "On Monday you will report to my office." "On Monday I'm at the shooting championship, Comrade Lieutenant-Colonel." "Representation is a matter of feeling." "You have to keep shooting." "I didn't make it in 1968, because I couldn't find a cameraman, they were all booked." "I asked Milota, but he was working in Germany." "They were all working like mad." "I asked Šámal, lots of people, and they all had lots of work." "And then the Russians came." "Procházka then told me that there was no way" "I could offer that script at that point to the Czech nation." "But it was lying around and I forgot about that." "And Easter 1969," "I travelled to France, I had a friend there, a journalist, where I always stayed, and" "I called Procházka from the airport, he was still the Head of the Writers' Guild." "So I called him in Prague from the airport, and said: "Mr. Procházka, please tell me if the film is going to be made." "I'm at the airport now." "If not, I'm not coming back." I'd made up my mind not to go back." "He said: "No, just the opposite..." The Czechs had again become more expansive, there was some euphoria." "He said: "We have to do shoot it now!"" "So I stayed in France 2 or 3 weeks and then went home and started pre-production, and Procházka said:" ""You have to start shooting, and if you want a print, it has to be made by 31 December 1969, otherwise forget it."" "So by day we shot in Hradec and at night they'd drive me to the cutting room and then back to the location, so we were cutting while we were shooting." "We mixed it over Christmas, everyone was fantastic, holiday-shmoliday." "We were mixing it for some time, Fabián." "The sound isn't completely realistic." "We invented some things." "The final special effect, the shooting was supposed to make everything go black" "Of course the special effects unit never got them right the first time." "This time they didn't get it at all." "But it's in the film because they had to take the negative and make that print otherwise we would have had nothing." "21, 22, 23..." "21, 22, 23..." " Don't pull the trigger, is that clear?" " I know, it's a shame." " Your hands are shaking like an old man." " Hey, hey..." "That's from those whores." "Calm and nerves, mainly good nerves." "You understand?" "I did the casting the year the Russians came, in 1968." "I could do some pre-production without a cameraman." "I can't remember who it was who shot the screen tests" "Doèolomanský wanted to do it, he was leaving the theatre, but we couldn't shoot." "And the year after, Doèolomanský had something else, he couldn't do it." "I made a mistake, it should have been Palúch, because that Czech-Slovak mix would have worked well, my mistake." "But everything can be done in post-synch, Palúch should have spoken the part." "Jonáš warned me." "I wanted Slovak in the film, Doèolomanský, and so he put Palúch in, and Palúch was good." "Mr. Arnošt, should I get you beer again?" "Beer?" "You're very kind." "Not today, tomorrow." "And why tomorrow?" "Because I don't have any money today." "Hmm." "Did you cut your arm, Mr. Arnošt?" "Yes." "Your pronunciation is getting much better." "Try those 'ø's... say: 'øeøicha'." " Øeøicha, øeøicha." "That combination of Palúch, Jonáš, and that environment, it worked." "Well, Jonáš had a drinking problem." "It got out of hand." "I asked him to leave." "About halfway through the film, I told him I'd finish it myself." "And then Švabík sent me young Smyczek, and he saw how things were, and he was a bit frightened himself." "I said: "It's okay, Smyczek, go home, I'll finish it myself." And I did." "Hey... what were you doing on military property?" "We weren't on any military property." "Of course not." "Hmm, let's go!" "Dear ladies, leave out the jokes and kindly answer the questions." "At at the same time, I must warn you that what you say can be used against you." "Is that clear?" "It's very interesting that you were enjoying yourselves where you should not be enjoying yourselves." "A very interesting circumstance." "Pardon me ladies..." "Let's go." "That film was more or less stylised into black and white, rather austere, to fit the absurd situations, for example the written slogans, etc." "I knew that Josefov was not some boomtown, perhaps it is today, but certainly not then." "The look was intentional, that we live among old women, gypsies, stray dogs and soldiers." "You don't find anything else except perhaps that erotica, those young girls." "But otherwise, it was so isolated, like a kind of necrotising world." "That's why the refrain with the gypsy, and the dog always digging in the sand..." "everything's always the same, old ladies saying the rosary in the dooryard." "Strange, the entire town is strange, the geometry of the streets, the circular streets, etc." "But it has nothing in common with documentary." "Damn." "Could you please lend me a pen?" "Hear that?" "He's got no lead in his pencil!" "No lead in his pencil?" "Then we're useless here." "No lead and he writes us up for some idiotic protocol infringements." "The protocol for all circumstances must be written with one's own pen." "But you have to have lead in your pencil." "And you're not to exhibit yourselves on military property." "Tsk!" "We've heard that before." "Yeah, I can see it in your eyes." " This is useless, let's go." " What's wrong?" "Know what?" " Write FUC-C, File Under Case-Closed." " Hmm." "The situation in Josefov was much worse than it would have been the year before- the Russians were there." "So it was difficult." "We were quite limited in where we could go." "And there was a lot of tension." "Half the barracks were housing Russians." "So it was pretty tense." "But I have to say that our soldiers did us great favours." "They'd build things for us, like in the scene with the cow," "In general they were our fans." "Damn!" "I'm not sure if the tone of the film is exactly connected to that situation." "I have a feeling that it's connected to the human condition, or situation, into which any person could get for whatever political or other situations." "Whosoever begins to think things over." "But of course it's made more desperate because of the military environment." "March, hup!" "Left, left, left..." "About face!" "About face!" "Left, left, left..." "On the ground!" "On your feet!" "On the ground!" "On your feet!" "One more time!" "Crawl!" "Forward!" "We made the print on the 31st, the last day of 1969." "Procházka got his friends together, Höger was there." "I invited people." "Everybody was quite positive about the film." "And then..." "I can't remember who told me that the film would be banned." "Maybe it was Procházka." "I forget the reason-that it was negative..." "it had a negative outlook on life not fit for public consumption." "My hands are shaking." "Whenever I see some big animal, my hands shake." "I must quit drinking." "I was constantly ill." "It started during the shooting," "I'm not sure if it was nerves or what." "Luckily the military hospital was there." "I was always in the emergency room." "I started getting these subcutaneous ulcers, which started from my instep up to here." "So they kept operating on me..." "It must have been from the tension, I'd never suffered so much." "It was horrible." "I have to say, that when they banned the film, I said fine." "For me it was a victory, that I had completed the film under such conditions." "At least I had done something." "And in a way I was relaxed." "So those seven years when I made no films it didn't really bother me." "They say 'øeøicha' - watercress, we've never seen so much watercress..." "But the two of us, we're not so sure of things." "And that's good." "One day we'll get together and go look for some, ok?" "But not a word to anyone, understand?" "Because people are different, and maybe someone would treat us badly." "So say 'øeøicha', but quietly, so nobody hears." " Øeøicha." " Ok, but quieter." "Øe-øi-cha." "Good." "Once more like that." "Jonáš started dating some wardrobe girl when František Vláèil was shooting Sirius, the girls would jump into his bed because Jonáš was assistant director." "It made me withdrawn from the film, those guys, I had to watch them from the other side of the fence, I had a film to do." "I ended up completely alone." "It was awful." "Insane." "I was sick for a long time, a year and a half." "Gall bladder problems and other weird conditions." "Then I started working in the library." "I worked there for two years." "And then Sobotka took me in secretly, nobody knew about it, this division called Propagfilm, making film trailers." "Czechs made their own trailers, these were for foreign films." "We made them shorter, added voice-overs." "Sobotka did that." "For each trailer we got 150 crowns, he would write it up in his name and give me my cut." "That era was absurd, crazy, and documentaries were made in a completely different way than I was used to doing it." "I'm still not interested in doing documentaries." "I'd like to make feature films." "I've written something with Sáša Kliment and with Vladimír Vondra." "I have the feeling my credit's no good anymore, everything today is connected with money, nobody would give this lady money for a feature film." "I'm impressed with Vìra Chytilová, but she has a different position, she's in different waters from the New Wave- different from me." "After my last film, I was so down, I thought I can't get back up again." "But those stays abroad and school days were challenging, beneficial." "It was a community- those various personalities..." "Sadly, Vìra and I can't see Evald anymore- There was such diversification and affinity, there was an effort to make yourself heard:" "Your positions, ideas." "It was a grand time, that time around my graduation from film school, something I've never experienced after." "I think the Czech New Wave has become legend now, and for good reasons." "People knew what they were doing and why, they had something to say, and they were dedicated." "It's a different situation today." "We can't go back into the past." "It was connected with the time, the opening of possibilities, the 'breathing space' as they called it." "People's self-expression is different now." "In that time people had inspiring and valuable opinions." "And thanks to Prof. Rauch, I said goodbye to the piano, for which I'd given my all, goodbye to the conservatory in Brno, where I worked so hard" "I barely noticed the 1950s." "Those were the worst years, the conservatory was an oasis of freedom, I sat there ten hours a day, nobody hassled you, we paid no attention to politics, the only thing we cared about was who played Beethoven the best." "Prof. Èernušák taught us history but he wasn't force-feeding us political themes... not even later at the university." "And with Stiebitz" "I studied classical art." "Those were quite liberal themes." "I was only playing the piano." "Nobody put limits on me." "But Prof. Rauch threw me into a completely new dimension, which I had to accept and find something else to do." "When they banned A Squandered Sunday, I said to myself, well, they've thrown me again into another new dimension." "We'll see what will happen." "I accept it as... fate." "DRAHOMÍRA VIHANOVÁ STARTED WORKING AGAIN IN FILM IN 1975 AND BECAME ONE OF THE LEADING CZECH" "DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKERS." "SHE ALSO MADE THE FEATURE FILMS THE FORTRESS (1994), AND THE PILGRIMAGE OF" "STUDENTS PETER AND JACOB (2000)." "SINCE 1983 SHE HAS LECTURED AT THE FILM AND TELEVISION SCHOOL OF" "THE ACADEMY OF ARTS IN PRAGUE."