A-E-I-O-U

Country

Czechoslovakia

Copyright

1979

Production year

1979

Premiere

5 September 1991

Runtime

56 min

Category

film

Genre

comedy

Typology

featuretheatrical distributionstudent filmmedium

Original title

AEIOU

Czech title

AEIOU

English title

A-E-I-O-U

Working title

O básníky nikdo nestojí

Summary

Students of the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) were often capable of producing films that the post-1968 “normalisation-time” censors would lock up in the proverbial vault straight away; they were films that would only make it to audiences after the 1989 revolution. Examples of such films include the negativistic satire Evžen mezi námi (Eugene Among Us) made by FAMU student Petr Nýdrle in 1980, and the comedy A-E-I-O-U (AEIOU) which follows a similar theme and was created by the duo of Dušan Kukal and Martina Bezouška in 1979. It is a story of rural secondary school student Karel Sedláček (Ivan Luťanský) fleeing to Prague from an undesired marriage with his pregnant girlfriend (Vlasta Žehrová). In the capital, Karel tries in vain to cut it as a poet and eventually gladly swaps his failed revolt for the initially shunned career of a member of the police force somewhere in the backwoods near the country’s border. The medium-length film made it to the silver screen in 1991 together with another FAMU movie that had gone straight to the censor’s drawer: Nezvaný host (The Uninvited Guest, 1969) by Vlastimil Venclík.

Synopsis

Student Karel Sedláček resists the offer to enter the ranks of the Communist police after graduating from secondary school, even though the recruiting officer tends to him with utmost care in a class otherwise full of girls. Karel finds out that his girlfriend is pregnant, and runs away from her parents' house where he was invited to make wedding arrangements. He, as a villager, finds Prague to be a suitable asylum. But he has no place to stay, and thus sleeps elsewhere, including a cemetery where he is found by a gravedigger. The shocked man calls the police. The policeman releases Karel on parole, but insists that he gets a job and accommodation. The young man then encounters various people and also mistakenly concludes that he could make his living as a poet. He, however, fails to settle down in the city. He even meets his ex girlfriend, who underwent an abortion. Karel succumbs to the pressure of conditions and becomes a policeman in a small middle-of-nowhere borderland village.

Note

In the additionally attached beginning of the movie, the artists thank Evald Schorm for "supervision" because the contemporary circumstances would not allow listing him in the captions. The film is dedicated to the memory of the tragically deceased actor Ivan Luťanský. The closing of the movie reads: This experimental excercise of Department of Screenwriting and Dramaturgy was filmed in collaboration with the Department of Camera and Editing and the Studio of Film and TV School of Academy of Performing Arts. In the additionally attached end credits for distribution in 1991, the copyright Filmové studio Barrandov 1990 is erroneously stated. However, the film was already completed in the fall of 1979. Filming took place on 16mm film material. The film was released in September 1991 with the film The Uninvited Guest (1969, Nezvaný host; directed by Vlastimil Venclík).

Cast

Ivan Luťanský

Karel Sedláček

Vlasta Žehrová

Karlova milenka

Katarína Benčičová

Slovenka, svobodná matka

Josef Kemr

příslušník StB

Jana Bermanová

kamarádka

Pavel Bošek

aktivní muž před kamerou

Vladimír Mišík

on sám, zpěvák

Leoš Suchařípa

vedoucí reklamní agentury

Bohumil Bezouška

příslušník Bezpečnosti, náborář

Bohumil Šmída

on sám, vedoucí komise na FAMU

Jaromír Kučera

on sám, člen komise na FAMU

Petr Šícha

člen komise na FAMU

Jiří D. Novotný

televizní reportér

Zdeněk Krištof

kuchtík

Karel Novák

muž na lavičce

Věra Brabcová

Crew and creators

Dramaturg

Petr Bartoš

Director of Photography

F. A. Brabec

Art Director

Dana Hávová, Jana Preková

Film Editor

Marie Moravcová

Titles Designed by

Václav Junek

Production Manager

Dušan Kukal, Martin Bezouška

Pedagogical management

Ivan Osvald (scénář), Jiří Macháně (kamera)

Cooperation

Filmové studio Barrandov (příprava do distribuce 1990), Evald Schorm (režijní supervize), Václava Benešová, Miroslav Čvorsjuk, Marie Fulková, Jozef Horal, Tomáš Kepka, Irena Kvěšová, Petr Mariňák, Štefan Uhrík, Jan Uhrín

Music

Music Performed by

skupina ETC

Songs

Počkej, ty budeš litovat

Singer sbor

Přátelství

Song Composer Pavel Žák
Writer of Lyrics Pavel Žák
Singer Petr Rezek

Šup sem šup tam

Singer sbor

Špejchar blues

Song Composer Vladimír Mišík
Writer of Lyrics Jan I. Wünsch
Singer Vladimír Mišík

Production info

Original Title

AEIOU

Czech Title

AEIOU

English Title

A-E-I-O-U

Working Title

O básníky nikdo nestojí

Category

film

Typology

featuretheatrical distributionstudent film

Genre

comedy

Student film

Origin country

Czechoslovakia

Copyright

1979

Production Year

1979

Production specifications

withdrawal from distribution 31 July 1993

Premiere

non-distribution premiere 1 December 1980 (Filmová a televizní fakulta Akademie múzických umění v Praze)
premiere 5 September 1991 /recommended for 12 and over/

Production

Studio FAMU

Technical info

Duration typology

medium length film

Duration in minutes

56 min

Original length in metres

1 630 meters

Distribution carrier

16mm, 35mm

Aspect ratio

1:1,37

Colour

black & white

Sound

sound

Sound system/format

mono

Versions

Czech

Dialogue languages

Czech

Subtitles languages

without subtitles

Opening/End credits languages

Czech