Release Date: Updated June 6, 2007

Summer Film Festival: Central Europe
National Gallery of Art, Washington
June–September 2007

The National Gallery of Art has planned several interrelated film series that will complement the exhibition and present many works from central Europe that have not been seen before in the United States. All programs will be held in the East Building Auditorium. Please note: Dates and titles are subject to change.

Czech Modernism 1920–1940
A twelve-film retrospective provides a glimpse of the vibrant film culture that flourished in Prague following WW I. On June 3, the silent film Kreutzer Sonata will feature live piano and violin accompaniment under the direction of pianist Donald Sosin. Two films by the prominent director Gustav Machatý and a selection of films addressing social problems are also among the highlights. This retrospective is organized through the cooperation of Irena Kovarova and the Czech Center, New York.

Films include:

May 12 Faithless Marijka (4:30 p.m.)

May 13 From Saturday to Sunday (4:30 p.m.)

May 26 On the Sunny Side (2:00 p.m.)

May 27 The River (5:00 p.m.)

June 2 Virginity (2:00 p.m.)

June 3 Lecture by Michal Bregant (2:00 p.m.) The Kreutzer Sonata (4:00 p.m.) Such is Life

June 9 Tonka of the Gallows (4:00 p.m.)

June 16 The Strike (2:30 p.m.) Crisis

June 17 The Distant Journey (4:00 p.m.)

New Romany Cinema from Hungary
June 30 at 2:30

A selection of recent works by Romany filmmakers renders their gypsy subjects with
blunt honesty, irony, and bold poetry, defying the clichés of exoticism frequently found in
films outside the community. Special thanks to Magda Zalán, Katalin Vajda, and Magyar
Filmunió. Dallas Pashamende (Robert-Adrian Pejo, 2005, 35 mm, Hungarian, Romanian, and gypsy dialect with subtitles, 93 minutes) Never-Never Gypsyland (Katalin Macskássy,
2003, Hungarian with subtitles,7 minutes), Szafari (Róbert Pölcz and Boglárka Pölcz, 2002, no dialogue, 10 minutes), and Gypsy Moon (István Malgot, 2001, Betasp, Hungarian with
subtitles, 54 minutes).

Goya’s Ghosts
Washington Premiere
Milos Forman in person
July 8 at 4:30

Milos Forman’s most recent film (a collaboration with screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière) is a visual feast. A rousing account of Spanish life as witnessed by Francisco Goya, 18th-century court painter and celebrated society observer, the film covers the period from the end of the Inquisition through Napoleon’s invasion. Cast includes Stellan Skarsgård, Javier Bardem, Randy Quaid, and Natalie Portman. (Milos Forman, 2006, 35 mm, 114 minutes).

New City Symphonies
August 5 at 4:00

City symphonies—fleeting, lyrical views of urban settings—have been a key experimental film genre since the 1920s. This program updates the once popular genre to focus on recent examples. Opening with Rudy Burckhardt’s classic New York portrait Square Times (1967) and including Sway (2006), Pushcarts of Eternity Street (2006), American Parade (2006), Girl with Dog (2005), A Trip to the City (2005), Cairo by Night (2006), and others, the program provides a contrast to the classic city films presented in the series Modernity and Tradition. (Total running time approximately 110 minutes).

Lech Majewski
Polish painter, poet, stage director, and Łódz Film School alumnus Lech Majewski (b. 1953)
writes, directs, shoots, edits, and composes music for his beautifully crafted films and media art. His stylized work often eschews language in favor of fantastical imagery, poetry, and music. “His imagination,” wrote Laurence Kardish of the Museum of Modern Art, “is informed by a unique sensibility hovering between the absurd and the metaphysical, the beautiful and the profane.”

August 11 at 2:30
Lech Majewski in person
The Knight (Rycerz) (1980, 35 mm, Polish with subtitles, 81 minutes)
The Roe’s Room (1997, Betasp,sung in Polish without subtitles, 90 minutes)

August 12 at 4:30
Lech Majewski in person
The Garden of Earthly Delights (2004, 35 mm, 103 minutes)

August 19 at 4:30
Angelus (2000, 35 mm, Polish with subtitles, 103 minutes)

Ringl and Pit
August 23 and 24 at 12:30

Pioneering photographers Grete Stern and Ellen Auerbach were the “ringl + pit” studio of 1920s Berlin. Students of Bauhaus artist Walter Peterhans, Stern and Auerbach challenged the expectations of their day, creating photographs that subverted the images of women in mainstream advertising. In the film they share their past and discuss their latest accomplishments. (Juan Mandelbaum, 1996, 16 mm, 56 minutes)

Miss Universe of 1929
August 25 at 3:00

The delicate history of cousins Lisl Goldarbeiter and Marci Tänzer, both born in 1907 to a large middle-class Austro-Hungarian Jewish family, is beautifully retold by Hungarian avant-garde filmmaker Péter Forgács. While conveying the fascinating chronicleof this family, Miss Universe of 1929 also tells the amazing tale of Lisl’s rise to beauty pageant stardom—she was the first Miss Universe—as a direct result of Marci’s amateur home-moviemaking. (Péter Forgács, 2006, Digital Beta, German with subtitles,70 minutes)

New Austrian Avant-Garde and Experimental Cinema
September 1, 2007, 3:00 p.m.
September 2, 2007, 4:30 p.m.

Austria’s reputation for dynamic experimental cinema is demonstrated in these recent short avant-garde works combining abstraction and narrative and revealing the filmmakers’ distinctive command of their medium.

Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine (2005, 35 mm, 8 min.)
Peter Tscherkassky

Aquarena (2005, 35 mm, 20 min.)
Josef Dabernig and Isabella Hollauf

Being and Nothingness (2007, 35 mm, 10 min.)
Bady Minck

Ein Heimatfilm (1996, HDV, 30 min.)
Johanna Kirsch

Nightstill (2007, 35 mm, 10 min.)
Elke Groen

Tears Work (2007, HDV, 14 min.)
Christian Frosch

Vertigo Rush (2007, Beta PAL, 20 min.)
Johann Lurf

Elements (2006, 35 mm, 8 min.)
Dariusz Kowalski

A million in debt is normal, said my grandfather (2006, 35 mm, 22 min.)
Gabriele Mathes

Gugug (2006, 35 mm, 6 min.)
Sabine Groschup

Planes (2006, DV/Beta PAL, 4 min.)
Thomas Fürhapter

Unilateral (2006, DV/Beta PAL, 18 min.)
Karo Goldt

Image Before My Eyes and Partisans of Vilna
September 3 at 1:00

Joshua Waletzky’s landmark documentary, Image Before My Eyes, uses historical footage of urban and rural life as well as interviews with survivors of the period to tell the story of Jewish life in Poland between the two world wars. (Joshua Waletzky,1981, 35 mm, 90 minutes). Partisans of Vilna, a valuable record of the World War II era, focuses on a city that for centuries was a center of Jewish culture in Eastern Europe. Interviews—some rousing (such as the story of Schmidt, an Austrian sergeant who smuggled Jews), some bizarre and incongruous (like the story of Rosenberg, whose scholarly project was titled Jewish Studies without Jews)—are the core of the documentary. (Joshua Waletzky and Aviva Kempner,1986, 35 mm, 130 minutes). Introduction by Aviva Kempner.

MODERNITY AND TRADITION: FILM IN INTERWAR CENTRAL EUROPE
East Building Auditorium
June–September 2007

In close harmony with the exhibition, this series of 34 documentaries, features, and experimental cinema presents both well-known and rarely seen films in six thematic programs. The series, which is accompanied by a detailed brochure with an essay by the program’s curator, Sonja Simonyi, will travel with the exhibition to venues in New York, Milwaukee, and Edinburgh. Please note: Dates and titles are subject to change.

Avant-garde Shorts
June 24

Dziś Mamy Bal (There Is a Ball Tonight) by Jerzy Zarzycki and Tadeusz Kowalski (1934, 35 mm, silent with music track, 7 minutes, Poland)
There Is a Ball Tonight is a documentary short in impressionistic style, presenting a visual account of the annual architects’ ball through trick film techniques.

Buty (Boots) by Jerzy Gabrielsky (1934, 35 mm, silent with music track and English subtitles, 12 minutes, Poland)
Hailed by the Polish interwar press as a rare example of Polish avant-garde film, the anti-war narrative explores diverse aspects of its medium.

Vormittagsspuk (Ghosts before Breakfast) by Hans Richter (1928, 16 mm, silent with music track, 6 minutes, Germany)
In Ghosts before Breakfast Hans Richter moves away from formal abstraction and constructs a playful narrative in which bourgeois values are challenged while objects (cups, hats, ties) revolt against their daily use.

Przygoda człowieka poczciwego (The Adventure of a Good Citizen) by Stefan and Franciszka Themerson (1937, 35 mm, Polish with English subtitles, 8 minutes, Poland)
Subtitled an “irrational humoresque,” this short film is the only surviving work of avant-garde artists Stefan and Franciszka Themerson made in Poland before World War II. The film became an inspiration for Roman Polanski’s student film Two Men and a Wardrobe (1958).

Na Pražském hradĕ (At the Prague Castle) by Alexander Hackenschmied (1931, 35 mm, silent with music track, 11 minutes, Czechoslovakia)
Alexander Hackenschmied investigates “the wider problem of the relation between film image and sound” through a varied framing of Prague’s outstanding landmark, the St. Vitus Cathedral, accompanied by the music of composer František Bartoš.

Homeland, Homeland: My Country
June 30–July 8

A magyar falu (The Hungarian Village) by László Kandó (1935, 35 mm, Hungarian with English intertitles, 15 minutes, Hungary)
Intended for tourism and marketing among foreign audiences, this documentary short uses idealized images of rural Hungary and staged scenes of Hungarian folk life. (The film received an award at the Brussels World Expo of 1935.)

Hortobágy by Georg Höllering (1936, 35 mm, Hungarian with English subtitles, 79 minutes, Hungary)
Through a loosely fictionalized narrative, the film depicts the Hortobágy region of the Great Hungarian Plain, a mythified region central to Hungarian national identity. Directed by Austrian filmmaker Georg Höllering, the film addresses societal progress through three generations of herdsmen, all playing themselves.

Zem Spieva (The Singing Earth) by Karel Plicka (1933, 35 mm, silent with music track, Czech and English intertitles, 133 minutes, Czechoslovakia)

The Earth Sings is a visual poem presenting lyrical images of Slovak peasant life. It earned an award as the best international film in competition at the 1934 Venice Film Festival. The striking cinematography, editing (by avant-garde artist Alexander Hackenschmied), and naturalistic scenes make the film stand out internationally as a unique ethnographic documentary.

Tavaszi Zápor (Spring Shower) by Pál Fejős (1932, 35 mm, French/Hungarian, 62 minutes, Hungary)
A co-production between France and Hungary, Spring Shower is a melodramatic story built on loosely interpreted folkloristic motifs. The Hungarian countryside provides a rich visual backdrop. The stylized narrative and imagery convey Fejős’ affinity with Hollywood, where he spent time before and after completing this film.

Das Blaue Licht (The Blue Light) by Leni Riefenstahl (1932, 16 mm, German with English subtitles, 60 minutes, Germany)
Riefenstahl’s debut as a filmmaker is a dramatic tale set in the Tirolean Alps. A late representative of the mountain film genre, merged with romantic motifs, the film is centered on a mythical character portrayed by Riefenstahl herself.

Píseň o Podkarpatské Rusi (The Song of Ruthenia) by Jiří Weiss (1937, 35 mm, Czech, 11 minutes, Czechoslovakia)
This short film’s lyrical images depict the challenging lives of woodworkers in Subcarpathian Ruthenia, as a voice-over narration exerts social critique on the living conditions of the region’s inhabitants.

Marijka nevěrnice (Unfaithful Marijka) by Vladislav Vančura (1934, 35 mm, Czech, Slovak, Yiddish, and Ruthenian with English subtitles, 72 minutes, Czechoslovakia)
Set in Subcarpathian Ruthenia, Unfaithful Marijka recounts a simple story of infidelity, through which the larger context of the region’s social isolation is explored. Secondary characters (played by nonprofessional locals) illustrate the complex social and ethnic relationships characteristic of the region.

Kujawiak (from the Polish Dance Series) by Eugeniusz Cękalski (1935, 35 mm, silent with English intertitles, approx. 15 minutes, Poland)
Kujawiak, a traditional Polish dance, is dynamically captured on camera by director Cękalski, a notable figure of independent Polish film production of the late 1930s.

The Most Important Art
July 21

Mir Kumen On (Children Must Laugh) by Aleksander Ford (1935, 16 mm, Yiddish with English subtitles, 63 minutes, Poland)
Financed by the Jewish Labor movement and banned by Polish authorities upon its release, the film was produced as a fund-raiser to improve the living conditions of Jewish children.

Mutter Krausens Fahrt ins Glück (Mother Krausen's Journey to Happiness) by Piel Jutzi (1929, 35 mm, silent with German intertitles, 104 minutes, Germany)
Mother Krausen's Journey to Happiness was the most successful interwar film production of the German Communist party. The film, a fusion of melodramatic narrative structures and formal elements of Soviet propaganda, depicts the living conditions of the German proletariat, notably through insertions of documentary footage from Berlin’s working-class neighborhoods.

Im Schatten der Maschine: Ein Montagefilm (In the Shadow of the Machine: A Montage Film) by Albrecht Viktor Blum (1928, 16 mm, silent with German intertitles, 22 minutes, Germany)
In the Shadow of the Machine is a propaganda short based on Soviet montage technique and incorporates segments of preexisting footage by the eminent Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov.

Celluloid Dreams and Celluloid Myths
July 22–July 29

Divotvorné Oko (The Magic Eye) by Jiří Lehovec (1939, 35 mm, Czech with English subtitles, 10 minutes, Czechoslovakia)
The Magic Eye combines documentary and experimental form as it demonstrates the camera’s ability to penetrate a world inaccessible to the naked eye. The theme of Freudian dreams is exposed through the exploration of everyday objects in novel forms.

Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (Waxworks) by Paul Leni (1924, 16 mm, silent with English intertitles, 83 minutes, Germany)
Continuing the rich visual traditions of expressionism in the German cinema, Waxworks represents an explosion of the characteristic themes defining this genre. A fairground serves as the setting for explorations of the psyche, as wax figures come to life in the oneiric visions of the main character.

Silnice Zpívá (The Highway Sings) Elmar Klos (1937, 35 mm, Czech with English subtitles, 4 minutes, Czechoslovakia)
This is a charming advertisement made in the Film Atelier of the Czech shoe and tire factory Baťa. The short follows a singing tire on a journey from its manufacture to its final destination on an automobile.

Der Dibuk (The Dybbuk) by Michal Waszyński (1937, 35 mm, Yiddish with English subtitles, 123 minutes, Poland)
Based on S. Ansky’s play, also known as Between Two Worlds, the film incorporates mythical elements and themes of Jewish folklore in a story of unattainable love. Merging the real and the otherworldly, it employs a rich expressionistic style. The Dybbuk is one of the most ambitious projects of the interwar Polish film industry and among the last to emerge from the thriving Polish-Yiddish film industry.

City Films
August 4–August 5

Žijeme v Praze (Living in Prague) by Otakar Vavrá (1934, 35 mm, silent with music track, 13 minutes, Czechoslovakia)
Vavrá’s short is an ode to the city of Prague as a bustling modern metropolis filled with varied crowds and lively neighborhoods. A wordless romantic encounter serves as a brief narrative counterpoint to the flow of poetic images.

Praha v září světel (Prague at Night) by Svatopluk Innemann (1928, 35 mm, silent with music track, 24 minutes, Czechoslovakia)
Commissioned by a Prague electricity company, the short registers quasi-documentary images of Prague from sunset to sunrise, exploring the city’s nightlife through its diverse use of electrical lighting.

Bezúčelná procházka (Aimless Walk) by Alexander Hackenschmied (1930, 35 mm, silent with music track, 20 minutes, Czechoslovakia)
The first true Czech avant-garde film relates to the city film genre, although it turns away from a celebratory approach toward urbanity. The camera follows the film’s detached protagonist on his wanderings from one side of the city outskirts to the other as this highly subjective journey is presented as a fragmented visualization of the urban landscape.

Berlin: Die Sinfonie einer Großstadt (Berlin: Symphony of a Big City) by Walter Ruttmann (1927, 35 mm, silent with music track, 65 minutes, Germany)
The most influential of city films, Berlin explores urban life through a rhythmical construction of the daily flow of activities in the German metropolis. The film’s use of meticulously orchestrated rhythmical montage particularly inspired future filmmakers up to the present to explore the city symphony genre.

Großstadt Zigeuner (Urban Gypsies) by László Moholy-Nagy (1932, 35 mm, silent with music track, 11 minutes, Germany)
Moholy-Nagy steers away from the formal abstraction of his earlier films to present the lives of Roma on the outskirts of a big city. More than a social critique, the film presents an idyllic and romanticized image of a minority living in isolation on the edge of society.

Polish-Jewish Travelogues of Kraków, Lwów, and Warsaw by Shaul and Yitzhak Goskind (1938/1939, 16 mm, Yiddish with English subtitles, 30 minutes [10 minutes each], Poland)
The Polish-Jewish travelogues, possibly produced for an American-Jewish audience, center on daily Jewish life in the city and explore both contemporary and historic aspects of the urban centers of Poland.

Budapest fürdőváros (Budapest, City of Baths) by István Somkúti (1935, 35 mm, silent with music track, 14 minutes, Hungary)
Largely diverting from dynamic formal explorations of the city landscape, the promotional-educational short (a commissioned work) explores the beauty of Budapest through its aquatic richness, complemented with picturesque images of the city.

The Popular
August 18–September 2

Der Letzte Mann (The Last Laugh) by F.W. Murnau (1924, 35 mm, silent with music track and English intertitles, 90 minutes, Germany)
The Last Laugh, which incorporates numerous pioneering technical elements, most importantly the earliest extensive use of a mobile camera, is an essential work in the history of cinema. The film’s simple story of a demoted hotel doorman offers the narrative framework for formal innovation.

Címzett Ismeretlen (Address Unknown) by Béla Gaál (1935, 35 mm, Hungarian with English subtitles, 88 minutes, Germany)
The Hollywoodesque Cinderella story set in contemporary Hungary (in a tourist town on Lake Balaton) is an example of the romantic comedy genre prevalent in the Hungarian domestic film production of the 1930s.

Maskerade (Masquerade) by Willy Forst (1934, 35 mm, German, 100 minutes, Austria)
Representative of the Wienfilm, a musical film genre exploring an idyllic vision of Viennese life, Masquerade explores the staged world of the decadent fin-de-siècle Vienna.

Hej rup! (Heave Ho!) by Martin Frič (Jiří Voskovec/Jan Werich) (1934, 35 mm, Czech with English subtitles, 99 minutes, Czechoslovakia)
The film merges avant-garde ideas and burlesque comedy crafted by the famous and highly popular Czech theatrical duo Voskovec and Werich (V+W). In Heave Ho!, their signature slapstick comedy style is fused with anti-fascist and anticapitalist propaganda.

Der Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel) by Josef von Sternberg (1930, 35 mm, German with English subtitles, 99 minutes, Germany)
The film portrays Marlene Dietrich in her first iconic role as a femme fatale; a sensual singer at the café Blue Angel, she causes the demise of a middle-class professor. Based on Heinrich Mann’s novel Professor Unrat, the opposing values of the protagonists are heightened in the adaptation to convey a critique of modern lifestyles.

General Information

The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden are at all times free to the public. They are located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, and are open Monday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The Gallery is closed on December 25 and January 1. For information call (202) 737-4215 or the Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD) at (202) 842-6176, or visit the Gallery's Web site at www.nga.gov.

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Summer Film Festival: Central Europe National Gallery of Art, Washington June–September 2007

Summer Film Festival: Central Europe
National Gallery of Art, Washington
June–September 2007