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    • New Talents Open Call
      Eastern Neighbours Film Festival (ENFF) began in The Netherlands in 2008 with the idea to offer Dutch and international audiences a unique glimpse into the cinema of their neighbors from Eastern and Southern Europe. This annual event presents the most recent, exciting, and thought‐provoking films, from countries with small, but often powerful film industries, that… Read more: New Talents Open Call
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      Unable To attend the festival in person? No problem! From November 27th to December 3rd, we’re thrilled to bring you a curated selection of this year’s films available for online viewing! Catch our captivating Opening Film Ivan’s Land, or the touching Closing Film Seventh Heaven. Or explore a collection of shorts from the New Talents Competition! Follow along… Read more: ENFF 2023 On Demand!
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      We talked with Monika Lošťáková about contemporary Slovak cinema.
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      Every year, ENFF brings special musical guests who bring beauty to the program and further represent the rich cultures of their countries to a Dutch audience.
    • Film Marathon
      Join us for the Film Marathon, a new concept in which we merge two components, Short Films, Big Stories, and New Talents Competition into a whole-day screening of short films!

dir. JURAJ HERZ

DUTCH PREMIERE

A cult film that was forbidden during the Communist regime. Considered one of the greatest films ever made in Czechoslovakia. This black comedy is set in Central Europe during World War II and revolves around a demented cremator who believes cremation relieves earthly suffering and sets out to save the world. 

Czechoslovak New Wave director Juraj Herz based his grotesque psychological horror masterpiece on the perspective of its deranged protagonist. Karel Kopfrkingl, brilliantly played by Rudolf Hrusinsky, starts as a model father and dedicated employee of a Prague crematorium and turns into a man willing to sacrifice everything, including his closest family, for the sake of a degenerate ideology. The film has a unique visual style developed by its cinematographer Stanislav Milota, who succeeds in moulding the visual and literary components into a new unity, taking the genre of the film onto a philosophical level. 

SHOWTIMES | Special Guest: Prof. Petr Kopecky

Friday, 24 November – 19:00

Buy Tickets Here!

SPALOVAC MRTVOL | 1969 | 97 min | Czechoslovakia

PRODUCTIONLadislav Hanu – Filmove studio Barrandov, Sebor
CASTRudolf Hrusinsky, Vlasta Chramostova, Jana Stehnova, Milos Vognic, Jiri Menzel
SCREENPLAYLadislav Fuks, Juraj Herz
CINEMATOGRAPHYStanislav Milota
EDITINGJaromir Janacek
LANGUAGECzech, Hebrew
SUBTITLESEnglish

FESTIVALS & AWARDS (SELECTION) 

Sitges – Catalonian International Film Festival, 1972 – Best Film, Best Actor, Best Cinematography | Czechoslovakian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 42nd Academy Awards

DIRECTOR’S BIO 

Juraj Herz (b. 1934, Kezmarok – 2018, Prague) was a famous Slovak film director, actor, and scene designer, associated with the Czechoslovak New Wave movement of the 1960s. Selected filmography: The Junk Shop (1965, short), The Sign of Cancer (1966), The Cremator (1968), Oil Lamps (1971), Morgiana (1972), Girls from the Porcelain Factory (1974), The Ninth Heart (1978), Ferat Vampire (1981), A Magpie in the Hand (1983), Passage (1996), Darkness (2009), Habermann (2010).

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