KVIFF to Present Premiere of Digitally Restored Version of Tainted Horseplay

This year’s edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival will present a gala screening of a digitally restored copy of Věra Chytilová’s tragicomedy Tainted Horseplay.

The tradition of showing world premieres of digitally restored works of domestic cinema started fifteen years ago at KVIFF. In 2011, the first title to be screened in this way was the historical drama Marketa Lazarová.

“The presentation of classic works of world cinema has always been a part of the Karlovy Vary festival’s programming,” says KVIFF’s executive director Kryštof Mucha. “In 2010, when the Gucci company provided financial support for the digital restoration of Luchino Visconti’s legendary drama The Leopard as part of a project spearheaded by The Film Foundation, we definitely took note. In our view, a similar collaborative undertaking on the Czech scene represented an interesting opportunity for the partners of the Karlovy Vary festival, and so fifteen years ago we decided to launch a project aimed at preserving the best works of domestic cinema and bringing them back to the big screen.”

Věra Chytilová shot her tragicomedy Tainted Horseplay in 1988. At the center of this generational portrait of thirty-somethings is a group of friends who engage in regular drinking sessions, the occasional borderline prank, and casual sexual adventures – until, that is, the wild and promiscuous Pepe ends up in the hospital. The group of friends subsequently undergoes an anonymous blood test, which shows that one member of their wild gang is HIV positive. This harsh confrontation with reality leads to a radical crisis of friendship.

Chytilová’s film, co-written with Pavel Škapík, is a grotesque tragicomic mosaic of damaged relationships and a reflection of the moral decay of the 1980s. Its ostentatiously nonconformist protagonists grapple with boredom, alienation, and a sense of emptiness in their lives, but their flight from reality leads to bleak dead-ends. The director also – daringly for the time – addresses the taboo subject of AIDS, which becomes a metaphor for danger and irresponsibility. Jaroslav Brabec’s camera organically contributes to the film’s distinctive visual style.

Chytilová found a creative synergy with the members of the Divadlo Sklep theater ensemble, who brought their typically sarcastic and free-spirited poetic sensibilities to their portrayal of the characters. Appearing in the film, which was shot in Karlovy Vary, are Tomáš Hanák, Milan Šteindler, David Vávra, Tereza Kučerová, Chantal Poullain, and Jiří Bartoška.

Tainted Horseplay is another in a series of films that have been digitally restored thanks to financial support from Milada and Eduard Kučera. The film was digitized by UPP and Soundsquare, in collaboration with the National Film Archive and the Czech Audiovisual Fund, using an original picture negative and an original sound negative stored at the National Film Archive.