dir: Milos Forman
1967 // 1 hr 11 min // Digital Projection
A milestone of the Czech New Wave, Milos Forman’s first color film The Firemen’s Ball (Horí, má panenko) is both a dazzling comedy and a provocative political satire. A hilarious saga of good intentions confounded, the story chronicles a firemen’s ball where nothing goes right—from a beauty pageant whose reluctant participants embarrass the organizers to a lottery from which nearly all the prizes are pilfered. Presumed to be a commentary on the floundering Czech leadership, the film was “banned forever” in Czechoslovakia following the Russian invasion and prompted Forman’s move to America.
High-Brow/Low-Brow/Uni-Brow is a film series programmed by Andrew Linn dedicated to exploring films from every corner of taste and seeing what they have to say with each other