🎬 Panelstory or Birth of a Community (1981)

Věra Chytilová (1929–2014) was a Czech film director and one of the most distinctive figures of the Czechoslovak New Wave. Known for her provocative style and sharp social criticism, she is best remembered for Daisies (1966). Even during the normalization era she maintained her uncompromising authorial voice.

Eva Kačírková is a Czech writer who co-wrote the screenplay for Věra Chytilová's Panelstory (1979) alongside the director. As the wife of a construction worker, she had first-hand knowledge of how socialist housing estates were actually built - details she wove directly into the script. She also appears in the film as…

Panelstory aneb Jak se rodí sídliště is a 1979 Czech film directed by Věra Chytilová. Set on the Jižní Město housing estate in Prague, it portrays normalisation-era Czechoslovak society through a mosaic of micro-stories spanning different generations and social groups, critically depicting indifference and communicati…

František Vláčil was a Czech film director, one of the most distinctive voices in 20th-century Czech cinema. He is best known for his visually poetic historical films Marketa Lazarová and Údolí včel (The Valley of the Bees). After the onset of normalization he was barred from working at Barrandov studios and made seve…

Dušan Hanák is a Slovak film director and a key figure of the Slovak New Wave. He is known for films such as Pictures of the Old World (1972) and I Love, You Love (1980), marked by poetic realism and social sensitivity. Several of his works were censored or banned during the Czechoslovak normalisation era.