Shot on the heels of the Prague Spring and subsequently banned by the Czechoslovak government, Menzel’s pointed political satire was finally released after the fall
of the Communist government in late 1989, winning the Golden Bear at the 40th Berlin International Film Festival. Adapted from a novel by acclaimed Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal, and set in the 1950s, it follows a group of political dissidents sent to be re-educated by working in a scrap metal yard, where dark humour is mined from a bleak reality. With Rudolf Hrušínský (The Cremator) and Vlastimil Brodský.

Digital restoration courtesy of the National Film Archive in Prague.