Film festival offers a chance to see an extraordinary forgotten movie from the fifties
Next week Prague movie-goers will have the chance to see a forgotten film by the Oscar winning directors Jan Kadar and Elmar Klos, who were legends of the Czechoslovak cinema of the 1960s. But this is a film that most would prefer to forget. "Unos" - or "Hijack" - from 1952 is Stalinist propaganda at its most crass - telling the story of two wicked imperialists, who decide to escape from communist Czechoslovakia to the West by hijacking a passenger plane, only to be "swallowed up in the mud of the émigré camp". The two hijackers are veterans of the Czechoslovak Squadron that flew during the war in Britain's Royal Air Force, making them still more dubious in the eyes of the regime. The film is pretty awful stuff, and what makes it still more shocking from today's perspective is that it stars two of this country's favourite actors of the 60s, 70s and 80s, Rudolf Hrusinsky and Milos Kopecky. "Hijack" is being shown as part of Prague's third International Aviation Film Festival, which starts next. I'm joined by the festival director, Milan Mikulecky.
"This movie is very bad. It has interesting actors, directors and screenplayers, and in this movie there is beautiful camera, beautiful shots of many Czechoslovak planes flying DC Dakotas of Czechoslovak Airlines. On the ground there are Czechoslovak Mosquitoes as American fighters - it's quite funny because they have a shark's smile on the engine! But this movie is from 1952. It's a dark, dark time in the history of this country. It is a communist propaganda movie - it's strong stuff and it's very stupid."
The two directors later went on to win an Oscar. They must have been very embarrassed later on by the film.
"I think it was a really hard time for these people, for the directors, Kadar and Klos or the actors Kopecky, Pesek and others, because at the time many people were in concentration camps in Czechoslovakia. I think that it wasn't possible - when the communist propaganda chiefs came and told them to make this movie - it was very hard to say 'No'."
This film is just one of many that are going to be shown at this festival. I gather that you've found some really quite exciting archive material that you're going to be showing from the time of the Second World War and after the war?
"We have friendship with the Military Museum in Prague, and this archive contains many German movies from WWII, including school movie of fighter pilots from the Luftwaffe."
"At this year's festival we will be showing a beautiful movie in colour from 1943, made at an airfield where the 310 Czechoslovak Fighter Squadron was based, at a time when new planes were coming - Spitfire Mark 5, and this picture shows many Czechoslovak pilots."
But you're not just looking to the past at this festival, are you. You are also showing modern, contemporary films?
"The very best movie this year is an Iranian movie from the year 1995. It's called 'Attack to H-3'. It's a story from the Iran-Iraq war, and the Iranian pilots have to destroy the Iraqi airforce base H-3"
The International Aviation Film Festival (www.leteckefilmy.cz) will be taking place in the Village Cinema complex at Andel in the Prague district of Smichov, from the 30th September to the 7th October. It will also include a fascinating gathering of veterans from both sides of the Suez conflict in 1956 - including Czech pilots, who fought on the Egyptian side. That will be on Sunday 3rd October at 1 o'clock
