This year, the Out of the Past section has a special focus. Marking the festival’s double anniversary, the programme is dedicated to landmark films that have previously been featured at KVIFF. Among them is The Defendant, which became the first domestic film to win the festival’s main competition in July 1964.
The intimate courtroom drama was directed by the iconic filmmaker duo Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos while they were working on what would later become their Academy Award-winning war drama The Shop on Main Street. Adapted from the novel of the same name, the film tells the story of a diligent power plant manager accused of turning a blind eye to corruption. “The filmmakers relocated the story to their own present day and gave it a much sharper critical edge,” noted host Tomáš Hubáček in his introduction. “In doing so, the film exposes not only the shortcomings of the planned economy, but also the close ties between the ruling elite and the judiciary.”
Striving for the greatest possible realism, the directors even cast a real judge, who had originally joined the production as a legal consultant, in the courtroom scenes. “He was the only member of the cast who was allowed to improvise,” explained Hubáček before sharing an anecdote about the score composer Zdeněk Liška. “He wanted the score to evoke the atmosphere of bureaucracy and red tape, so he wrote a piece and had pianists perform it on typewriters.”
Upon its premiere, the film’s powerful exploration of responsibility caused a sensation, and a year later Kadár and Klos were awarded the title of merited artists. “During the period of ‘Normalisation’ following the Prague Spring, however, The Defendant became politically problematic and was consigned to the censor’s figurative vault for eighteen years. Perhaps that is why it is less known today. That is also why I am delighted to see such a large audience here,” the film historian concluded, adding that the screening would present the film’s digitally restored version from 2022, produced with the participation of KVIFF.
