Screening Dates
  • March 11 (Monday) 6:30
  • March 16 (Saturday) 8:30
  • March 21 (Thursday) 6:30
  • March 24 (Sunday) 8:30
New Restoration

“A genuine oddity … Whimsical, likeable, and inventive … One of the best early examples of the Czech New Wave.”

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

In this modern-day fairy tale and rediscovered Czech New Wave cult classic, an ordinary Bohemian village is visited by a magician (Jan Werich), his beautiful assistant Diana (Emília Vásáryová), and a magic cat with the power to reveal people in colours that indicate their true natures. Yellow for the unfaithful, purple for liars, red for lovers like Robert (Vlastimil Brodský), a bighearted school teacher whose independence of thought places him at odds with the town’s conservative authorities. When the cat reveals the villagers as they really are and the town descends into whimsical chaos, humourless school principal Karel (Jiří Sovák) vows to hunt down the feline and put an end to its anarchic reign. Ahead of its time in experimenting with stylized colour and extended political metaphor, The Cassandra Cat is director Vojtěch Jasný’s triumphant excursion into fantasy as a mirror of real-life social divisions and hypocrisies. —Janus Films

In Czech with English subtitles

Special Jury Prize
Cannes Film Festival 1963

“Gloriously goofy … Jasný always keeps the tone light to the point of levitating. A real treat.”

Jessica Winter, Time Out
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