The Firemen’s Ball in world premiere

April 16, 2012, 12:00 PM

Photo from the film The Firemen’s Ball

Last year the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival initiated a long-term project to digitally restore major works of Czechoslovak cinematography. The Ministry of Culture and the National Film Archive are also involved in the project. The common aim is the gradual digitisation of titles from the Czech film industry’s gold collection, to preserve them and to make them accessible to future generations of viewers who would perhaps otherwise never have the chance to see them.

The first film on the list, whose digitally restored copy was screened in its gala premiere at last year’s Karlovy Vary IFF, was František Vláčil’s Marketa Lazarová.


This year the 47th Karlovy Vary IFF will be hosting the world premiere of the digitally restored copy of Miloš Forman’s film The Firemen’s Ball (Hoří, má panenko). On the occasion of the director’s landmark birthday, which he celebrated in February, this film will be screened on Saturday 30 June 2012 in the Grand Hall of the Thermal hotel. The film became one of the vintage symbols of the Czech New Wave and, in fact, closed Forman’s promising career in his native country; his endeavours thereafter continued overseas. Apart from the cinematic invention of Miloš Forman and his colleague and friend of many years, cinematographer Miroslav Ondříček, The Firemen’s Ball also acknowledges other major names in 1960s Czech film, such as Jaroslav Papoušek and Ivan Passer, who co-wrote the screenplay. The digitally restored copy of The Firemen´s Ball was financed by the Czech company Casting Centrum.

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