Věra Chytilová’s PanelStory, satirical portrait of socialist housing, to screen at Berlinale

One of the three most prestigious film festivals in the world, the Berlinale, opens this Thursday in Berlin. Among the Czech films presented this year is Věra Chytilová’s 1979 satirical film PanelStory, or How a Housing Development Is Born.

The film captures a single day in the unfinished Prague housing estate of Jižní Město and was released only two years after its completion, after the communist authorities initially withheld it from cinemas. I spoke about the film with Michal Bregant, Director of the National Film Archive, which was in charge of the restoration.

Michal Bregant|Photo: Martin Melichar, Czech Radio

Could you first describe the film to our listeners who have perhaps never heard of it before?

"Well, I think a typical quality of all the films of Věra Chytilová is that they are very hard to describe. It is really something that needs to be watched, ideally on a big screen in the cinema. And Panel Story is one of those films that brings a unique testimony to what we were and where we were, because it is kind of an anatomy of human behaviour."

"Back in the 1970s, the film was basically telling the story of the conditions under which the vast majority of the population of Czechoslovakia was living. At the same time, it is universal, because it is basically a human comedy. It is about how unfinished we are, because the story develops in the environment of an unfinished housing project."

Věra Chytilová, photo: Czech Television

"It is not only a criticism of how the state monopoly in housing development was functioning—or not functioning. It is more about how we behave, how we are able to be blind to the needs of others, and how we can slowly adjust to consumer society, which was essentially the issue of the 1970s, no matter the political system."

What were the circumstances in which the film was made? I know that the communist authorities only allowed it to be screened two years after it was completed.

"She was blacklisted in the early 1970s after her most successful films, such as Daisies or Fruit of Paradise, which were awarded internationally. But she did not want to show any loyalty toward the new so-called normalization and the government. Therefore, she was not allowed to make films. There were new people in the Barrandov Studios who had a strictly ideological and rather narrow outlook, and Chytilová, with her very critical approach, did not fit into this new ideology."

Panel house construcion|Photo: archive of Východočeské muzeum Pardubice

"So she was not allowed even to touch the handle of the door at Barrandov Studios until the mid-1970s. That was only thanks to her energy, her stubbornness, and also her creative potential. In the 1970s, she accepted several scripts that had been waiting at Barrandov Studios for someone who would transform those badly written stories into films. That was the case with The Apple Game and Calamity. Panel Story was made between those two films."

"Basically, the intention of the authorities was to make a film about our happy society building communism in this new environment. But what Chytilová did in the end was just the opposite. It was a super-critical and very open image of society."

So how was it received? I know that abroad it won awards. I know it won an award at the San Remo Film Festival. But what about here, in what was then Czechoslovakia?

"In Czechoslovakia, the release was postponed because the authorities basically did not know what to do with her film, which was normally the case with Panel Story. That was happening to all her films at that time. In the end, the release was limited to certain parts of the country."

"Internationally, however, Chytilová was already a big name in the 1970s. First, she was remembered for her films from the 1960s. But it was also a time when feminist film criticism and feminist filmmaking began to blossom, and Chytilová was labelled a feminist filmmaker. She did not like that at all, because she always claimed that she was a human being, not only a woman, and she did not want to be labelled in that way."

Věra Chytilová mezi námi|Photo: Galina Kopaněva, Camera Obscura

"Nevertheless, her films were adored as a feminist manifesto, and this is why she was invited to many festivals—although she was not always allowed to travel. There was this international context, which was also quite important for the appreciation of Panel Story."

Can you tell us about the restoration process? What aspects of the film did the restoration focus on?

"In the case of Panel Story, we were very lucky that the technical condition of the original camera negative and the original sound negative was so good that we could scan them and carry out the whole digitization and new colour grading digitally. It was done in a very respectful way toward the original shape of the film from the 1970s."

"So people will watch the film as it looked and as it sounded back then, in the 1970s. It is only cleaner, because obviously we can remove what we call the traces of time—all the dirt and so on. But it will still have the features of a film of that period, which was also important for Chytilová."

"She was very much into spontaneous imagery. She preferred unstaged situations and improvisation, if you will. So this is a film that speaks for that period of time and also for the handwriting of Chytilová."

The film will be screened at the Berlinale Classics section. Did the organizers choose it themselves, or did you offer it to them?

Panel house in Barrandov, Prague|Photo: archiv Zdeňka Hölzela

"You know, nowadays the field of classic and restored films is so broad and so dense that big festivals basically never pick films themselves. It is always a matter of negotiation with the selectors and programmers at the festivals."

"In the case of Panel Story and the Berlinale, it took us some time to convince all the responsible people that this was the right film for the program. So it was also a big success for us that we were able to push it through the selection process and that the film will return to the big screen, with a big new premiere at this very important international film festival in Berlin."

And you have already touched upon it in your first answer, but still, do you think it will resonate with today’s audiences?

"I am sure the film is a very hot topic even nowadays, because you have gaps in communication between generations, certain social issues, and the big theme of unfulfilled dreams of individuals who are living in a certain type of isolation."

"The environment—the unfinished housing development—may be historical, but that is not so important, because the film still carries a very strong humanistic message."

"I think these are topics that are very relevant in our society today. The environment—the unfinished housing development—may be historical, but that is not so important, because the film still carries a very strong humanistic message."

Following its premiere at the Berlinale, the newly restored version of Věra Chytilová’s PanelStory, or How a Housing Development Is Born will be distributed to selected cinemas across the Czech Republic.