On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the armies of the Warsaw Pact in 1968, we present two remarkable films focusing on the Prague Spring. The Ferrari Dino Girl by Czechoslovak New Wave classic Jan Němec and Elective Affinities by Karel Vachek include authentic scenes as well as a re-enactment of the period events.
The Ferrari Dino Girl (2009) by Jan Němec is a re-enactment of the events of August 21, 1968 when Němec and his small film crew shot a sixteen-minute documentary on various sites of occupied Prague and smuggled the unique witness account to Austria. His scenes from occupied Prague were broadcast by the Austrian television and subsequently seen by millions of people around the world. The film has a symbolical length of 68 minutes and includes the unique archive footage in its original form as shot by Jan Němec on August 21, 1968.
Karel Vachek’s Elective Affinities capture the atmosphere of the stormy political period of March 14 to 30, 1968 between the abdication of President Antonín Novotný and the election of General Ludvík Svoboda. Politicians Alexander Dubček, Josef Smrkovský, Oldřich Černík, Čestmír Císař, Ota Šik, František Kriegel, Gustáv Husák and others are shown as they casually talk while the resulting mosaic depicts the spirit of the era and its inner charged atmosphere.
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