Czech cinema history: from the New Wave to now

In 1968 a quiet Czech film about a young railway apprentice at a small station in wartime won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Closely Watched Trains, directed by Jiří Menzel, was no accident. It was the best-known product of a movement.

Before the New Wave

Czech film has a longer history. Cinemas opened in the Austro-Hungarian lands from the 1890s, and by the 1930s Prague had an industry big enough to build Barrandov, which has its own guide to Barrandov Studios. After the Second World War the industry was nationalised, and under communism it was run by the state.

State control meant money and censorship. Filmmakers learned to work inside the system, and a generation trained at the Prague film school FAMU became the backbone of what followed.

The New Wave

In the 1960s, as the political climate eased, a group of young directors made films that were formally playful, humane and sceptical of authority. Common threads were improvised or non-professional actors, black humour and a refusal to flatter the state.

Names to know: Miloš Forman, whose Loves of a Blonde and The Fireman's Ball mixed comedy with unease; Věra Chytilová, whose experimental Daisies is a landmark of feminist cinema; Menzel, as above; Ivan Passer and Jan Němec. A different strand ran through Karel Zeman's trick-film fantasies and Jiří Trnka's puppet animation. The Shop on Main Street won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 1966, the first Czechoslovak film to do so.

After 1968

The Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968 ended the thaw (the story is in our guide to the Prague Spring). In the years of "normalisation" that followed, many films were banned, some for decades, and directors were silenced or left. Forman went to the United States and made One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus. Part of Amadeus was shot in Prague, which stood in for Vienna.

Those who stayed made what they could. Comedies, fairy tales and television films flourished under the constraints, and several became part of Czech Christmas viewing. Our list of Czech films to watch has some.

After 1989

The end of communism ended censorship, and also ended state funding as it had been. The industry shrank, then rebuilt. In 1997 Jan Svěrák's Kolya won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Czech comedies and dramas kept drawing home audiences, and the country built a reputation as a place to shoot international films.

Animation and experimental film stayed strong. Jan Švankmajer, whose work mixes stop-motion, objects and surrealism, has an international following.

Why it matters in Prague

Film is part of the city's identity. Many places you'll visit were locations, and you can follow film routes through the Old Town, Josefov and the Castle district. The Golem legend has been filmed more than once; see the Golem legend.

For viewing, the National Film Archive screens classic Czech films in its own cinema. Check its programme. Czech films with English subtitles also turn up at festivals and in smaller independent cinemas, though programmes change too fast to list.

Do this today

Pick one New Wave film, Closely Watched Trains or Daisies, find a subtitled copy through a legitimate service or library and watch it this week. Then walk through the Old Town and count the places you recognise.