Noir Film Festival 2021: Day 2
2021/8/19
Visitors will be able to choose from ten screenings during the second day of the Noir Film Festival. Three Czechoslovak titles will be on the program – Ošklivá slečna (The Plain Old Maid, 1959), starring Dana Medřická and Karel Höger, a psychological drama about the disturbing bond between a young girl and an older man, made by the creative duo of Karel Kachyňa and Jan Procházka under the title Závrať (Vertigo, 1962), and the silent film Příchozí z temnot (The Arrival from the Darkness, 1921), made a hundred years ago, which will be accompanied by cellist Terezie Kovalová.
During the second day, the Coen brothers will also be on hand with the cult classic Fargo (1996) and their „miraculous“ debut Blood Simple (1984), in which they entertain the audience with a sophisticated, unpredictable play on noir archetypes and narrative patterns, much like they did with the classic noir Somewhere in the Night (1946). The gothic Bollywood noir The Fog (Kohraa, 1964) will provide a thrilling exotic spectacle, while the melodrama Not Wanted (1949), about the hardships of a single mother, and the socially engaged The Lawless (1950), set in a racist American small town, will stir strong emotions.
The second night of the festival will also be marked by the launch of a special Blu-ray edition of No Way Out (1950), released by Art4Film in cooperation with the festival (having previously released Hitchcock’s Rebecca and Mackendrick’s Sweet Smell of Success on blue disc). „The film, about a young black doctor (debuting Sidney Poitier) who is wrongly accused of murder by a racist criminal, is the best example of the socially conscious filmmaking championed by Darryl F. Zanuck at Twentieth Century-Fox,“ says programmer Milan Hain, who wrote the accompanying study for the booklet. The disc will be christened by the festival’s godfathers: actor Igor Bareš and director and producer Václav Marhoul. No Way Out (1950) will be enjoyed under the night sky in the castle courtyard, where before the film the dreamy melodies of melancholic songs by the singer Sara Vondrášková aka Never Sol will be played.
