In winning the Grand Prix at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival (IFFMH) in 1964, Jan Němec’s drama Démanty noci (Diamonds of the Night) became the first Czechoslovak New Wave film to receive an internationally recognised award. The motion picture, based on a short story from an eponymous book by Arnošt Lustig, started the brilliant career of one of the most original Czech filmmakers of the 1960s (Němec had adapted one other Lustig short story, Sousto (Mouthful), as a short film while graduating at Prague film school FAMU). Diamonds of the Night offers an unusual, intensely attitudinal insight into the topic of war. It tells the story of two young Jewish men who escape from a train taking them to their death. The film amounts to a naturalistic study of endangerment, repudiation and uprootedness. The experiences of the desperate refugees in the Sudetenland forest merge with the memories, dreams and visions of one of the men. Thus the anatomy of a tortured human soul is projected into the sphere of existential drama.
Second World War. Two young boys jump from a moving deportation train carrying Jews. The German guards shoot at them but the boys manage to reach the forest. They are exhausted, hungry, freezing cold and want to go home. In a fever, they are haunted by memories of their recent horrific past, images of events that never did and never will occur in reality, visions of returning home, which they never reach in their dreams. From their hiding place deep in the forest, they see a woman carrying food to her husband in the field. After she returns to the cottage, one of the fugitives goes to ask her for food. He wants to kill her to prevent her informing on them. The boy is given bread but cannot bring himself to harm the woman. The famished boys cannot swallow the food. The woman puts a scarf on her head and considers whether to inform on them or not. Armed old men from the village organize a manhunt and catch up with the exhausted boys. They celebrate their victory while the boys wait to see what will happen to them. Finally, the euphoric Germans let them go and the two young boys run off hoping they will reach their home after all.
První
Voice by Vladimír Pucholt
Druhý
venkovanka
venkovan
mladý člen SS
mladý člen SS
pronásledovatel
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pronásledovatel
pronásledovatel
pronásledovatel
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pronásledovatel
Arnošt Lustig (Tma nemá stín – povídka ze sbírky Démanty noci)
Miloslav Dvořák, Jan David (2), Libor Speychal
František Černý, Bohumír Brunclík (zvukové efekty)
Ladislav Dražan, Vladimíra Kopecká, Lubomír Novotný
František Vláčil (režijní supervize), Jiřina Znamenáčková (klapka), Bohumil Ženíšek (vrchní osvětlovač), Jiří Stach (fotograf)
Démanty noci
Démanty noci
Diamonds of the Night
film
featuretheatrical distribution
drama, psychological
Czechoslovakia
1964
1963
projection approval 16 March 1964
withdrawal from distribution 6 April 1973
withdrawal from distribution 1 July 1993
premiere 25 September 1964 /unsuitable for youths/ (celostátní)
premiere 13 November 1964 /unsuitable for youths/ (kino Praha /1 týden/, Praha)
renewed premiere 1 December 1989 /unsuitable for youths/
renewed premiere 30 August 2018 /suitable for all ages without limit/
Ústřední půjčovna filmů (původní 1964 a obnovená 1989), Národní filmový archiv (obnovená 2018)
Tvůrčí skupina Švabík – Procházka, Jan Procházka (vedoucí dramaturg tvůrčí skupiny), Erich Švabík (vedoucí výroby tvůrčí skupiny)
feature film
67 min
1 809 meters
35mm, DCP 2-D, BRD
1:1,37
black & white
sound
mono
Czech
Czech, German
without subtitles
Czech
Festival: 33. mezinárodní festival archivních a restaurovaných filmů Il Cinema Ritrovato Boloňa
2019
Boloňa / Italy
Second Run
Event: Anketa Českého rozhlasu – Kánon100 (nejoblíbenější umělecká díla posledních 100 let)
2018
Praha / Czech Republic
Festival: 3. mezinárodní festival česko-německo-židovské kultury Praha – Devět bran
2002
Praha / Czech Republic
Arnošt Lustig
Festival: 3. mezinárodní festival česko-německo-židovské kultury Praha – Devět bran
2002
Praha / Czech Republic
Jan Němec
Event: Anketa filmových kritiků o nejlepší česko-slovenský hraný film století
1998
Praha / Czech Republic
Event: 7. mezinárodní kongres Mezinárodní unie filmových technických sdružení Praha
1966
Praha / Czechoslovakia
Event: Anketa britského periodika Films and Filming
1966
Londýn / Great Britain
Miroslav Hájek
Exhibition: 1. mezinárodní přehlídka nového filmu Pesaro
1965
Pesaro / Italy
Event: Umělecká soutěž k 20. výročí osvobození Československa
1965
Praha / Czechoslovakia
Jan Němec
Festival: 13. mezinárodní filmový týden Mannheim
1964
Mannheim / Federal Republic of Germany