Every Day Courage: Restored “forgotten jewel” gets Karlovy Vary premiere
As every year, a restored Czech classic gets its premiere at the Karlovy Vary film festival on Saturday afternoon. However this time out the slot will feature a relatively little-known work from the Czechoslovak New Wave: Every Day Courage, directed by Evald Schorm. I discussed the 1964 film with Michal Bregant of the National Film Archive, which oversaw the restoration.
“Každý den odvahu, or Every Day Courage, is a forgotten jewel of the 1960s.
“It has a very modern way of directing. The performances of Jan Kačer and Jana Brejchová are absolutely amazing and very, very authentic.
“Also it’s notable for the theme of the film.
“The moral dilemmas of the young generation in the post-Stalinist era is something that may sound outdated, because it happened decades ago, but it’s very topical.
“I think it’s very relatable to the ethical dilemmas that people are experiencing nowadays.
“The story and the style have very deep psychological elements which are, I believe, able to make a bridge between the young people of the mid-1960s and the young people of today.”
What kind of director was Schorm?
“Evald Schorm belongs to the generation of Věra Chytilová, Jan Němec, Jiří Menzel and Karel Vachek.
“He was always considered a kind of moral element within the New Wave movement.
“He also appears in a few films, like The Joke by Jaromil Jireš, and always looked like a sad hero of his time.
“He made a few films in the 1960s and then he was one of those who were blacklisted.
“He was only allowed to work in theatre, but he did a few fantastic productions at Laterna magika in the ‘70s and the ‘80s.
“Unfortunately he died early [at 56, in 1988], so he couldn’t make a move back onto the scene in the 1990s.”
Previously films that have been restored and then premiered at Karlovy Vary were kind of the family jewels of Czech cinema, like Marketa Lazarová or Intimate Lighting. Why the choice this time of this much less-known movie?
“Because we want to show the complexity of the Czech film heritage.
“In Karlovy Vary we always present feature-long fiction films, so we are not really speaking about the news reels, documentaries, animation or experimental films, for example.
“That’s the form of the cooperation with Karlovy Vary festival.
“But Schorm is one of those who have to be… I wouldn’t say rediscovered, but their work has to be reopened to the new generation of audiences.”
The opening scene of Every Day Courage (unrestored version)
