Barking Boxshot

Czechoslovakia, 1964
Length / Diamonds of the Night: 68 minutes
Special features: 53 minutes
Sound: 2.0 Dual Mono LPCM (48khz/24-bit)
Black and white
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Language: Czech
Subtitles: English

Blu-Ray: BD25 / 1080 / 24fps
Region ABC (Region Free)
Blu-Ray RRP: £19.99

Release Date: 21 Jan 2019
Second Run BD018

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Presented from new 4K remaster, Second Run present Jan Němec's masterful and harrowing Diamonds of the Night.

Němec’s debut feature is one of the most thrilling and startlingly original works of cinema. Told almost without dialogue, it chronicles the tense and desperate journey of two teenage boys who are trying to stay alive after escaping from a German train bound for a Nazi concentration camp during World War II.

Adaptated from 'Darkness Casts No Shadow' by Arnošt Lustig, Diamonds of the Night is one of the earliest key early works of the Czechoslovak New Wave. This stunning new 4K restoration premiered in the at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, and Second Run are delighted to present the film in its new restoration for the first time anywhere on Blu-ray.

This region-free Blu-ray special edition includes the world Blu-ray premiere Jan Němec's acclaimed debut short film A Loaf of Bread (Sousto, 1960), a new audio commentary by film historian Michael Brooke, and interviews with Eva Lustigová, daughter of author Arnošt Lustig, and Czech cinema expert Peter Hames.

more about the film

Blonde Stills

Special Features
• Presented from a new 4K restoration of the film from original materials by the Czech National Film Archive.

• Jan Němec’s debut short film A Loaf of Bread (Sousto, 1960).

• Audio commentary by film historian Michael Brooke.

• New filmed interview with Eva Lustigová, daughter of author Arnošt Lustig.

• A filmed appreciation by Peter Hames.

• Trailer (2018).

• 20-page booklet featuring Michael Brooke's substantial
essay on the film.

• World Premiere on Blu-ray.

• Region Free Blu-ray (A/B/C).

Related Titles

Ladislav Janský - First young man
Antonín Kumbera - Second young man
Ilse Bischofová - Woman
Jan Říha
Ivan Asič


Directed by Jan Němec

Screenplay – Arnošt Lustig, Jan Němec
Based on the novella 'Darkness Casts No Shadow'
(Tma nemá stín) by Arnošt Lustig
Cinematography – Jaroslav Kučera
Second Camera - Miroslav Ondřiček
Editor - Miroslav Hájek
Sound - František Černý
Set Design - Oldřich Bosák
Costume Design - Ester Krumbachová
Producer - Miloš Bergl

 


Related Titles

Diamonds of the Night is also availble on DVD

Jan Nemec's acclaimed film The Party and the Guests,
voted by New York critics as one of the best films
of the 1960s, is also available on Second Run DVD.

IntimateIntimate

 

 

Appreciation

"Němec sought to make pictures that captured emotional and mental states in a way that strived to be intrinsically filmic rather than just theatre on film" Central Europe Review

"A thrillingly original piece of cinema" FilmJournal.net

"A remarkable directorial debut... Němec's film is bleak, alternately realistic and hallucinatory"
Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

“An extraordinary debut, and an intense experience...
Honest, pure, and with a dark beauty all of its own”
Cine Outsider

“An absolutely essential viewing experience” Glenn Kenny

“Nemec’s technique is as emotionally intuitive as it is masterful, purposefully scrambling past and present, handheld realism (a breathless opening tracking shot) and Buñuellian surrealism (fever-dreamed ants colonizing Jánsky’s angelic face). It’s a torrent of life - and cinema - in the face of death” Time Out

"Everything about the film, cinematography, editing, sound and the performances sit perfectly to create a truly brilliant piece
of work. I have never forgotten the film" Marc Isaacs

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