Barking Boxshot
Adelheid
Czechoslovakia, 1968
Length / All My Good Countrymen:
115 minutes
Length / Special feature: 15 minutes
Sound: Mono (restored)
Colour
Original aspect ratio:
1.37:1
Language: Czech
Subtitles: English On/Off
PAL / DVD9
Region 0
RRP: £12.99
buyRelease Date: 23 Nov 2015
Second Run DVD 104

Hailed "the spiritual father of the Czech New Wave" by Miloš Forman, Vojtěch Jasný is one of that movement’s leading lights – and his autobiographical All My Good Countrymen is one of the wonders of that miraculous era of Czech filmmaking. It's deceptively simple narrative weaves a complex tapestry around the interwoven lives of a group of villagers immediately following the ‘socialization’ of Czechoslovakia in 1948.

Completed just prior to the Soviet invasion of 1968, it was quickly banned. A print was smuggled out of the country and screened at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival, where it went onto win both the Best Director and a special Jury Prize that year.

A pronounced influence on later works like Edgar Reitz's Heimat and Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon, Jasný's film remains a potent reminder of lives and idealism lost under totalitarianism.

Available for the first time ever in the UK, the DVD presents the film from a superb high-definition digital transfer of the brand new 4k restoration of the film by the Czech National Film Archive, and also includes Vojtech Jasný’s 1969 short film Bohemian Rhapsody (Česká rapsodie) and a booklet featuring a new essay on the film by Czech cinema expert Peter Hames.

more about the film

Blonde Stills

Special Features

• Presented from a superb high-definition digital transfer of
the brand new 4k restoration of the film by the Czech National Film Archive.

• Vojtech Jasný’s 1969 short film Bohemian Rhapsody
(Česká rapsodie).

• 12-page booklet featuring a new essay by author and Czech cinema expert Peter Hames.

• New and improved English subtitle translation.

• Available for the first time in the UK.

Related Titles
Vlastimil Brodský - Očenáš
Radoslav Brzobohatý - František
Vladimír Menšík - Jořka Pyřk
Waldemar Matuška - Zášinek
Drahomíra Hofmanová - the 'Merry Widow'
Pavel Pavlovský - Bertin
Václav Babka - Franta Lampa
Josef Hlinomaz - Frajz
Karel Augusta - Joza Trňa
Ilja Prachař – Josef Plecmera


Directed by Vojtěch Jasný

Story and screenplay - Vojtěch Jasný
Cinematography - Jaroslav Kučera
Music – Svatopluk Havelka
Editor - Miroslav Hájek
Sound – Dobroslav Šrámek
Art direction – Karel Lier
Costumes - Ester Krumbachová

Appreciation

1969 Cannes Film Festival / Winner: Best Director
1969 Cannes Film Festival / Special Distinction Award
1969 Plzen Film Festival / Winner: Best Film

Voted by critics in the 'Top 3 Czechoslovak films of all time'

“It’s rare to see such sincere empathy in cinema...
revealing itself as one of Second Run DVD’s finest and most user-friendly releases” David Jenkins, Little White Lies

"A historic film for both its extraordinary poetic and social qualities and its position as the masterpiece of Vojtěch Jasný - father of that brilliant flowering of Czechoslovak cinema"
The New York Times

“A bitter-sweet, affectionate and pointed picture of a life
many Czechs would have recognised. A key film from the Prague Spring” Time Out

"The film and the milieu it so precisely evokes are not so much nostalgic as they are powerfully remembered and irrevocably lost... reflects the curdled fury of a former true believer"
Village Voice

"Jasný’s lyrical masterpiece" Radio Praha

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