Saturday Night, Sunday Morning, This Sporting Life, We Are The Lambeth Boys, Morgan: A Suitable Case For Treatment. Film doesn’t come much more “British” than that….

Film poster at the Czech Lions Exhibition January 2013

The link between them all is Karel Reisz, born in Ostrava, Czechoslovakia, and brought up there until he escaped Nazi persecution at the age of 12.

A Czech biography screens in London today, 23 June as part of the Open City Docs Fest. The film was released in October last year, and today is it’s UK premiere. The screening is followed by a discussion with the director and producer of the film; chaired by Stephen Frears, who worked with Reisz. You can find a trailer for the film here.

Only a few hours to go before the first night of the Czech and Slovak Film Festival of Australia in Melbourne. First night and first festival. 

The opening night features both animation and 60s new wave cinema with the screening of Slovak director Štefan Uher’s The Sun in a Net (1962) and both A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1959) and The Hand (1965) by Legendary animator Jiří Trnka.

Other films showing include major Czech Lion winner In the Shadow (2012) at the opening gala on 6 June, Private Universe (2012), the Blue Tiger, Alois Nebel and to close the festival on 9 June: Flower Buds. Their great  website gives more details on each film.

Here’s the trailer for the festival: