Epic, expansive, affectionate and deeply passionate, CzechMate – In Search of Jiří Menzel is an extraordinary documentary film, a labour of love by filmmaker Shivendra Singh Dungarpur. Its depth and scale are unparalleled in the study of the Czechoslovak cinema.
Jiří Menzel’s debut film Closely Observed Trains (Ostře sledované vlaky, 1966) made a profound impression on young film student Dungarpur. Years later, he invited Menzel to meet him in a Prague café - and so began a conversation and a friendship that has culminated in this epic, seven-hour-plus film that not only explores the deceptively whimsical comic films of Jiří Menzel, but all of the artists who strove to make films that whispered subversion and rebellion often at the risk of their livelihood, or even their lives.
Filmed over a period of seven years, Dungarpur and his team interviewed filmmakers, actors, crew members, writers, historians and critics who had been touched by the New Wave - including Věra Chytilová, Miloš Forman, Vojtěch Jasný, Ivan Passer, Ken Loach, Juraj Jakubisko, Jaromír Šofr, Andrzej Wajda, Dušan Hanák, Štefan Uher, Jan Němec, and Miroslav Ondříček among them.
Blu-ray 2-disc Special Edition features:
• Presented from a brand new director-approved HD transfer of the complete version of the film.
• Two of Jiří Menzel acclaimed and rarely seen early short films:
- Prefabricated Houses (Domy z panelů, 1959)
- Our Dear Mister Foerster Died (Umřel nám pan Foerster, 1963)
• Image gallery featuring photographs and posters from the personal archives of director Shivendra Singh Dungarpur.
• Booklet featuring extracts from Dungarpur's shooting-diaries.
• Region free Blu-ray (A/B/C)
• 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
• World premiere on Blu-ray - available on home video for the first time anywhere.
