Panelstory, or How a Housing Estate Is Born

In the second half of the 1970s, Czechoslovak cinema entered a period of relative liberalization, allowing Věra Chytilová to return to feature filmmaking. Shortly after The Game of Apples, she created another critical portrait of unstable human relationships - this time using a housing estate as a microcosm of normalization-era society, where negligence, indifference, and communication barriers prevent anything from functioning properly. The film encompasses all generations and various social groups.

Co-screenwriter Eva Kačírková, wife of a construction engineer, brought insider knowledge of how housing estate development actually unfolded in Czechoslovakia - and she also appears in one of the film's roles. Filming took place in Prague's South Town. The portrait of a community where members pursue only individual goals instead of shared socialist ideals proved so pointed and biting that the premiere was initially postponed, and the film was subsequently shown in only a limited number of cinemas outside major cities.

Before domestic audiences could see Panelstory, viewers at the San Remo film festival in Italy saw it first, where the film received the Grand Prize in 1980.