Iluminace, 2017 (vol. 29), issue 4
Articles
Magical Films for People. On the Czechoslovak Film Underground of the 1980s
Martin Blažíček
Iluminace 2017, 29(4):5-29 | DOI: 10.58193/ilu.1538 
The study focuses on the cultural circle of the Czechoslovak underground through a specific case study of a group of filmmakers around an author working under the name Čaroděj OZ. The first part explores the wider context of the underground environment in an attempt to clarify and define the background of the generation that worked during the era of so-called normalization at the turn of the 1980s. It also defines the position of underground films in relation to amateur films and describes the specific artistic motivations of the group. Taking individual films as examples, the study comments on the selected period of film production, describing its...
Vítězslav Nezval, the Role of Photogénie and a Turn of Thought
Radomír D. Kokeš
Iluminace 2017, 29(4):31-46 | DOI: 10.58193/ilu.1539
The article looks at a number of significant features of the film theory and criticism of the poet and representative of Czech interwar avant-garde Vítězslav Nezval. Nezval tends to be somewhat marginalized as an author of texts on cinema in comparison with Karel Teige but, considering these features and frameworks, he represents a quite unique, albeit somewhat elusive, phenomenon in the history of Czech film theory. First of all, an unexpected and significant turn of thought in his interpretation of the phenomenon of cinema occurred within just one year. The turn was (a) rhetorical. In contrast to his earlier abstracting and theorizing approach, he...
Analysis
The Films of Angela Schanelec: Between Boredom and Excited Anticipation. Minimalistic Motion in Slow Cinema
Ondřej Pavlík
Iluminace 2017, 29(4):47-68 | DOI: 10.58193/ilu.1540
The analytical study analyses the films of the German director Angela Schanelec in the context of slow cinema. While existing scholarship on slow cinema emphasizes its oppositional relationship to rapidly accelerating contemporary Hollywood cinema and neoliberal capitalism, here the focus is on contradictions within slow films themselves. Drawing upon David Bordwell's analytical poetics of cinema and Bordwell's and Kristin Thompson's neoformalist approach, this study proposes that Schanelec's films are driven by mutually opposed, systematically developed types of motion that appear on the level of form and style. More specifically, slow or decelerated...
Horizon
Stories Within History (Marie Barešová - Tereza Czesany Dvořáková, Generace normalizace. Ztracená naděje českého filmu? Praha: NFA 2017)
Zuzana Černá
Iluminace 2017, 29(4):93-95
The text reviews the publication Generace normalizace (The Normalization Generation), which uses oral history methods to map the professional careers of FAMU graduates affected by the onset of political repression after 1968, praising its ability to present the shared experience of this "lost" generation of filmmakers in a comprehensible yet professional manner, without unnecessary mythologizing.
Amateur Cinema as Cultural Heritage (Siegfried Mattl - Carina Lesky - Vrääth Őhner - Ingo Zechner /eds./, Abenteuer Alltag. Zur Archäologie des Amateurfilms. Wien: Österreichisches Filmmuseum - SYNEMA - Gesellschaft für Film und Medien 2015)
Tereza Cz Dvořáková
Iluminace 2017, 29(4):96-99
The text reviews the anthology Abenteuer Alltag, which is the first German-language overview of research on amateur film, examining its technological, aesthetic, and political contexts in the modern era. Although, according to the author, it serves as a valuable guide for orientation in the field based on archival research, it does not sufficiently reflect the transformation and definition of amateur filmmaking in the current digital era.
Media of Time, History, Present, Future (Tomáš Dvořák a kol., Temporalita /nových/ médií. Praha: NAMU 2016)
Kateřina Krtilová
Iluminace 2017, 29(4):100-103
The text reviews the collective monograph Temporality of (New) Media, which uses media-philosophical and social science approaches to examine how historical and contemporary technologies—from book printing to film to high-frequency trading—condition human perception of time, synchronization processes, and the very construction of history.
This Is Not an Exhibition. It Is More than That. (Ester Krumbachová: Sněžný muž - Nosit amulet - Zamotávat archiv. Tranzitdisplay, Praha, 14. 12. 2017 - 21. 2. 2018, autorky Zuzana Blochová a Edith Jeřábková)
Matěj Forejt
Iluminace 2017, 29(4):104-106
The text places the exhibition project dedicated to Ester Krumbachová's estate in the context of archival impulse theory and the concept of an open archive, analyzing the experimental interconnection of authentic documents with interventions by contemporary artists, which offers a new perspective on working with the material but may be more difficult to understand for the average visitor without knowledge of the broader context.
Film Industry Voices
Film Production is Entirely Non-Standard. An Interview with Jaromír Kallista
Petr Bilík
Iluminace 2017, 29(4):69-78 | DOI: 10.58193/ilu.1541
An interview with producer Jaromír Kallista maps his professional career from his work at Barrandov and Laterna Magika to the founding of Athanor, describing in detail the specifics of financing and producing Jan Švankmajer's films in the context of changes in Czechoslovak and Czech cinematography.
Film Labs Should Be Communities. An Interview with Matthieu Darras, Artistic Director of TorinoFilmLab
Radim Procházka
Iluminace 2017, 29(4):79-89
An interview with Matthieu Darras, artistic director of TorinoFilmLab, focuses on the transformation of the film industry, in which international laboratories are taking on the role of key communities for talent development and democratization of access to filmmaking, while offering a critical view of the isolation and decline in quality of Czech feature filmmaking.
Ad Fontes
Czech Administration of the Company Deutsche Filmvertriebgesellschaft m. b. H. (1945-1947)
Luboš Marek
Iluminace 2017, 29(4):90-92 | DOI: 10.58193/ilu.1543
The text maps the process of the post-war liquidation of the German distribution company Deutsche Filmvertriebgesellschaft m.b.H. under Czech administration, which in 1945–1947 sought to secure property and film copies in the former Reichsgau Sudetenland, despite complicated conditions including theft by the Red Army and administrative errors.