Rail Yard Blues

Colour, 35 mm
Czech Republic, 2006, 90 min
Section: Czech Films 2005-2006

Synopsis

Pavel Göbl and Roman Švejda’s feature film debut is a faithful adaptation of a stage play that René Levínský (under the pseudonym Samuel Königgratz) wrote for the Best-Behaved Teddy Bears (Nejhodnější medvídci) company in Hradec Králové. The theatre production was nominated for the Alfréd Radok Prize and was successfully staged in Prague and elsewhere. This lightly absurd tragicomedy takes place at a small Czech railway station over one July week and follows the personal and professional relationships between the railway employees with a degree of hyperbole. The characters include the cleaner Gábina, who has just lost her prospective groom and, on the rebound, chooses dispatcher Aleš as her new beau. But he has already been involved with the cashier Jaruše and is currently having an affair with the daughter of the fearsome ticket inspector Evžen... The combination of absurd caricature and realistic depiction of the everyday routine of railway staff makes the film, in terms of genre, one of the most original Czech debuts in recent years.

About the director

Pavel Göbl (1967) graduated in direction from the FAMU. His film The Open Country of a Lonely Man was shown in cinemas as part of the Radhošť Cycle film that won the Don Quixote Award from the FICC international jury at the 2002 Finále Plzeň Festival. Pavel Göbl wrote and directed the TV film Maple Goulash  and is now completing the independently produced feature film The Penis of Truth. Rail Yard Blues is his feature debut for cinema distribution.

Roman Švejda, director and screenwriter, graduated from the Film School in Zlín in 1993 with the fictional documentary  ...Nor Death. Roman Švejda also does interior art design. He worked as a film designer on the short film Pure (dir. P. Delew), Marek Najbrt’s The News and the Radhošť Story from the the Cycle of the same name. He is the author of the books Nest of Time  and Along the Morava River. Rail Yard Blues is his directorial debut.