Joseph Kilian ( cs, Postava k podpírání) is a 1963 short Czech

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed by

Pavel Juráček Pavel Juráček (; 2 August 1935 – 20 May 1989) was a Czech screenwriter and film director who studied at FAMU. Juráček started as a screenwriter for many Czech New Wave movies until he became a director. He worked in Prague at the Ba ...

and Jan Schmidt. It was released in 1964. The movie belongs to the

Czech New Wave The Czechoslovak New Wave (also Czech New Wave) is a term used for the Czechoslovak filmmakers who started making movies in the 1960s. The directors commonly included are Miloš Forman, Věra Chytilová, Ivan Passer, Pavel Juráček, Jiří Men ...

Plot

Jan Herold is trying to find comrade Kilian, but no one ever heard of him. He wanders the streets of Prague when he suddenly sees a "Cat rental company". He decides to rent a cat and goes home. When he comes back the next day to return the cat, the company is gone and there's no evidence it ever existed. He then continues to search for the mysterious Killian. When he finally finds his office, it is empty. He goes to a pub and sees a man who looks a lot like Killian, but when he asks him, the man denies it and leaves in a hurry. Before losing him Jan can see the man is carrying a cat.

Cast

* Karel Vašíček as Jan Herold * Consuela Morávková as Saleswoman * Ivan Růžička as Official *

Pavel Bártl Pavel (Bulgarian, Russian, Serbian and Macedonian: Павел, Czech, Slovene, Romanian: Pavel, Polish: Paweł, Ukrainian: Павло, Pavlo) is a male given name. It is a Slavic cognate of the name Paul (derived from the Greek Pavlos). Pavel ...

as Kilian *

Jiří Stivín Jiří Stivín (born 23 November 1942 in Prague) is a Czech flute player and composer. Biography He graduated from the Film Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU). He also studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music ...

as Musician * Pavel Šilhánek as Man with cresset

Reception

The film was well-received by international film critics. Many reviewers favourably compared the film to Kafka's work. Czechoslovak communist critics attacked the film on ideological basis.

Release

The film premiered on 4 September 1964 in Czechoslovakia. First DVD release was by Second Run in 2013 on a disc with

František Vláčil František Vláčil (19 February 1924, Český Těšín – 27 January 1999, Prague) was a Czech film director, painter, and graphic artist. Between 1945 and 1950, he studied aesthetics and art history at Masaryk University in Brno. Later he w ...

's '' The White Dove''. The film was digitally restored in 4K by

Czech Film Archive The National Film Archive (, abb. NFA) is a film archive located in Prague, Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to t ...

and re-released in cinemas on 3 March 2016. The restored version was released together with

Case for a Rookie Hangman ''Case for a Rookie Hangman'' ( cs, Případ pro začínajícího kata) is a Czechoslovak drama film directed by Pavel Juráček. It was released in 1970. The movie belongs to the Czech New Wave. The movie can be classified as a surrealist or ...

on DVD and Blu-ray on 26 April 2017.

Awards

*Grand Prix at 1964 International Short Film Festival Oberhausen *FIPRESCI Prize at 1964

Mannheim International Film Festival The Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival (german: Internationales Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg), often referred to by the German-language initialism IFFMH, is an annual film festival established in 1952 hosted jointly by the citi ...

Bibliography

* * * *

References

External links

* 1963 films 1963 drama films 1960s Czech-language films Czech black-and-white films Czech satirical films Films with screenplays by Pavel Juráček Czech drama films Absurdist fiction 1960s Czech films {{1960s-CzechRepublic-film-stub