This time we have shown a psychological drama Diamonds of the Night (1964). This feature positioned Jan Němec as the most uncompromising visionary among the radical filmmakers who made up the Czechoslovak New Wave. The film is an adaptation of the short story Darkness Casts No Shadow from the novel Diamonds of the Night by the Czech Jewish author Arnošt Lustig. By showing this film we want to pay tribute to the author, as this year marks 95 years since his birth, as well as 10 years since his passing.

The film closely tracks two boys who escape from a concentration-camp transport and flee into the surrounding woods, hostile terrain where the brute realities of survival coexist with dreams, memories, and fragments of visual poetry.

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The film was digitally restored in 2018 by the National Film Archive at the Universal Production Partners and Soundsquare studios in Prague.

Invitation: Diamonds of the Night (PDF, 299 KB)