IT'S GONNA GET WORSE  * 2007 * (A bude hůř) * Directed by Petr Nikolaev * 86 minutes * In Czech with English subtitles
This movie has become a renowned cult film in Czechoslovakia, but has been basically unseen anywhere else. Shot in a beautifully rough b&w, this film is immersive like no other, taking us back to Czechoslovakia and how alternative-types lived under Communist rule. The main characters are hippies, but a much rougher type than what was found in America. These are guys who drink incredible amounts of hard alcohol, take drugs and have hard sex... but they listen to psychedelic rock music and have found their own way to be alternative. Wow, this film is incredible in capturing that whole milieu.

As the movie unfolds we witness more and more how people get tangled up in the heavy police state, and how both prisons and mental hospitals were used to keep people in their place. The film is based on the cult novel by Jan Pelc, which focused on the youth undergrounds and how they had to fight the so-called "normalization" programs of the Communists during the 70s and 80s. To be fair, all right-wing governments do this, even in Holland and Germany today, but they are called "re-integration" or "rehabilitation" programs. If the first part of the film seems more comical in the way it follows the daily activities of a bunch of hippies with parties, alcohol, and drugs... the second part is more serious, showing how the police put pressure on these groups who refused to bend to the rules.

For me this film clearly re-creates a kind of film-making that has a lot in common with early Wim Wenders or Milos Forman and the Czech New wave... a fresh engagement with cinema... without any special effects, which gets to the heart of life itself. It's an amazing achievement for a film made in 2007. This will be an incredibly rare screening of this unseen gem.

+ Short film:  REBECCA AND HER DAUGHTERS
2021 - Directed by Shifra Osorio Whewell  (15 min)

Tickets go on sale at 20:00 * Film starts at 21:00 * Visitors limited to 20