The world premiere of the restored version of Tainted Horseplay was a celebration in more ways than one. Before Karel Och introduced the film, KVIFF Executive Director Kryštof Mucha invited Mirka Spáčilová and Věra Míšková onto the stage before a packed Grand Hall. “When you prepare such a major anniversary, you go through the names of everyone who helped make the festival a success. Today, we would like to honour two women who were instrumental to us in the 1990s and about whom Jiří Bartoška used to say that without them he would never have defeated that Golem,” Mucha explained, presenting a special award to the two journalists, who stood by KVIFF during the years when the rival Prague festival, Golden Golem, was in existence.
After receiving their gold plaques and words of thanks, the large delegation behind Věra Chytilová’s film – which was shot in Karlovy Vary in the late 1980s – took to the stage. “I’m a Karlovy Vary man at heart, so while scouting locations I took the director to the Grandhotel Pupp. During the shoot, though, I started to regret it. In one scene set in the hotel’s restaurant, a stuntman’s hand was supposed to catch fire. After sixteen hours, the entire restaurant was on fire, and I had to stop filming. Věra started choking me, saying I’d ruined her film. Fortunately, the director of the Pupp was a golfing friend of mine, so the damage only cost me 15,000, and I survived that too,” producer Jaroslav Bouček recalled.
The microphone was then eagerly claimed by actors David Vávra, Milan Šteindler and Tomáš Hanák. “It all began because Pavel Škapík dreamed that Věra Chytilová had accepted his screenplay. The next day he sent it to her, and that’s how we all ended up here,” Vávra summed up, before lending his hat to the interpreter. Milan Šteindler then quoted Bolek Polívka, who introduced Calamity at the Moscow Film Festival with the words: “I am the director, Věra Chytilová, and I wish you a profound cultural experience.” Tomáš Hanák concluded with a quote of his own: “Better than talking about a film for a long time is watching it.” “As you can see, working with this bunch was quite an experience,” cinematographer Jaroslav Brabec remarked, while revealing to the audience his chest, signed by the cast.
