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Film Archive

Ball Lightning

Tribute to Daniela Kolářová 2023 / Kulový blesk / Czechoslovakia 1978

Ball Lightning Ball Lightning

Synopsis

A comedy about the “biggest operation in the history of moving” that ostensibly embraces the poetic appeal of the Jára Cimrman Theatre. The film is built upon minor absurdities of social and private life, which are developed with delicacy and playfulness and serve to unmask the pettiness and folly of both individuals and period attitudes. A multiple flat exchange involving twelve apartments, which is to take place during the course of a single day, provides a source of scintillating, comic situations and verbal humour that has become part of local oral tradition. Even so, more sombre notes filter through, particularly in the voices of the married couple portrayed by Daniela Kolářová and Josef Abrhám, conveying the uncertainty and transience of human existence.

Zdena Škapová

About the film

82 min / Color, DCP

Director Ladislav Smoljak, Zdeněk Podskalský / Screenplay Ladislav Smoljak, Zdeněk Svěrák, Zdeněk Podskalský / Dir. of Photography Ivan Šlapeta / Music Zdeněk Lukáš / Sound Jiří Lenoch / Editor Jiří Brožek / Art Director Josef Dvořák / Production Filmové studio Barrandov / Cast Rudolf Hrušínský, Karel Kalaš, Josef Abrhám, Daniela Kolářová / Sales Národní filmový archiv

About the director

Ladislav Smoljak, Zdeněk Podskalský Ladislav Smoljak, Zdeněk Podskalský

Ladislav Smoljak (1931, Prague – 2010, Kladno, Czech Republic). Selected filmography: Ball Lightning (1978), Run, Waiter, Run! (1980), Jára Cimrman, Lying, Sleeping (1983), Dissolved and Effused (1984), An Uncertain Season (1987). Zdeněk Podskalský (1923, Malenice, Czechoslovakia – 1993, Prague). Selected filmography: When the Woman Butts In (1959), The White Lady (1965), Men About Town (1969), A Night at Karlstein (1973), Ball Lightning (1978), Blockbuster (1980).

Contacts

Národní filmový archiv
Závišova 5, 140 00, Praha 4
Czech Republic
E-mail: [email protected]

Guests

Daniela Kolářová
Actress

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