Unique films from the Prague Spring Festival 1946-67

On the occasion of this year’s Prague Spring Festival, until the end of June the National Film Archive is granting access to ten short documentary films and weeklies that are more or less directly connected with the festival. The films showing the festival during several different years (including the inaugural festival in 1946) are supplemented by material filmed for a production at Laterna magika (The Magician’s Lantern) promoting the Prague Spring Festival, the documentary film Hudba v srdci Evropy (Music in the Heart of Europe) about the rich musical tradition in the Czech lands, and a film about the history and development of the Czech Philharmonic.

“The individual films reflect how the role of the festival was transformed from 1946 until the late 1960s. From the years just after the war, enthusiasm and love for music still shine forth to this day. Some of the films are marked by the ideology of the period while others strongly bear the hallmarks of their authors and of their technical approach. We are offering all the digitised films in an unaltered form, so they show traces of the time that has passed since they were introduced,” says National Film Archive general manager Michal Bregant about making the films available.

You can find information about individual films here.