"Director: Pavel Jurácek"

• The White Dove (Holubice) / Josef Kilián (Postava k podpírání) - Two-film Special Edition | DVD | (28/10/2013) from £14.49   |  Saving you £-1.50 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Second Run DVD present a unique double bill of two early works now regarded as two of the main precursors of the Czechoslovak New Wave. The White Dove is the bold and striking debut feature of master filmmaker František Vlácil (Marketa Lazarova; The Valley of the Bees). It is a sparse elegantly composed and stunningly beautiful tale of a wheelchair-bound boy and an artist who inadvertently intercept a homing pigeon and nurse it back to health. Josef Kilián is a dark and absurdly humorous biting allegory of life under the Communist regime. Author of the screenplays for Daisies Ikarie and a Jester's Tale yet Pavel Jurácek remains one of the Czech New Wave's most neglected artists. He made only four films and this surrealist masterpiece - inspired by two icons of Czech literature: the anti-militarist anti-authoritarian Jaroslav Hasek and the grotesque nightmares of Franz Kafka - was 'banned forever' after the Soviet invasion of 1969. Newly restored from original master materials these two remarkable films are presented for the first time ever in the UK. Special Features: Presented from Newly Restored Master Materials Booklet Essay

• A Case for a Rookie Hangman | Blu Ray | (24/06/2019) from £21.09   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A free-form and darkly surreal adaptation of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Pavel Jurá ek's film also channels Lewis Carroll and Franz Kafka to create one of Czecholsovak cinema's most unique and deeply disturbing works. A man becomes lost on a country road and finds himself in an alternative, nightmare world that mirrors (then) modern-day Czechoslovakia. Needless to say the film was not warmly received by the authorities, and like his earlier surrealist masterwork Josef Kilián (1963), was promptly 'banned forever'. Jurá ek, who had earlier co-written V ra Chytilová's Daisies, Jind ich Polák's pioneering Ikarie XB 1 and Karel Zeman's A Jester's Tale, never made another film - but his legacy is one of the most profound, invigorating and important in all Czech cinema.

• A Case For A Rookie Hangman | DVD | (24/06/2019) from £6.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A free-form and darkly surreal adaptation of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Pavel Jurá ek's film also channels Lewis Carroll and Franz Kafka to create one of Czecholsovak cinema's most unique and deeply disturbing works. A man becomes lost on a country road and finds himself in an alternative, nightmare world that mirrors (then) modern-day Czechoslovakia. Needless to say the film was not warmly received by the authorities, and like his earlier surrealist masterwork Josef Kilián (1963), was promptly 'banned forever'. Jurá ek, who had earlier co-written V ra Chytilová's Daisies, Jind ich Polák's pioneering Ikarie XB 1 and Karel Zeman's A Jester's Tale, never made another film - but his legacy is one of the most profound, invigorating and important in all Czech cinema. This edition also contains a new 4K restoration presentation of Pavel Jurácek and Jan Schmidt s Josef Kilián.