Official selection
Official Selection - Cannes Film Festival 1963
Special Mention - Thessaloniki International Film Festival 1964
Locarno Film Festival 1963
Cannes Classics 2021
Honors
Cannes Film Festival - Special Jury Prize
Thessaloniki International Film Festival - Special Mention
Producer
Jaroslav Jílovec
Writer
Jirí Brdecka, Vojtech Jasný, Jan Werich
Cast
Vlastimil Brodský, Emília Vášáryová, Jan Werich
Cinematographer
Jaroslav Kucera
Editor
Jan Chaloupek
contact
Janus Films
“A hugely and joyously inventive work that intermittently explodes with energy and imagination”
- CINE OUTSIDER
"Part fairy tale and part political satire, THE CASSANDRA CAT won the Jury Prize at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival. Five years later, it was banned by the communist regime after Soviet tanks rolled into Prague.”
- Jason Pirodsky, PRAGUE REPORTER
When a wizard and his traveling companions roll up to a mundane town where expressions of imagination and creativity are heavily discouraged by the mayor, in favour of cultural austerity, the troupe’s magical cat ignites outright anarchy. Unbeknownst to most of the locals, this cat harbours a secret power: when his tiny glasses are removed, he carries the ability to reveal people’s hidden characters, by changing their colour for all the world to see — violet for liars and hypocrites, yellow for cheaters, and red for those in love. At a circus performance attended by the entire town, acrobat Diana takes off the cat’s glasses, exposing soap-opera levels of dishonesty and infidelity within the community, and capturing sensitive teacher Robert’s heart in the process, as a delirious riot ensues.
Cannes Special Jury Prizewinner (1963) THE CASSANDRA CAT (aka WHEN THE CAT COMES) is largely accepted as an early title in the Czech New Wave, even if director Vojtech Jasný came out of FAMU (Prague Film School) a generation earlier than most of the other filmmakers who made up the core of the movement. The film displays many of the assets that would become associated with this oftentimes playful, oftentimes avant-garde approach to political filmmaking that dominated the sixties in Czechoslovakia. The film mixes in wild, hallucinatory trick photography — including lush cinematography by Jaroslav Kucera (DAISIES, 1966) — with dizzying musical numbers, while the themes of fantasy, surrealism, magical realism and fairytale dominate. Endearing, genuinely whimsical, yet hiding a deep social message, the film was banned after the Prague Spring in 1968, sending director Jasný into exile. This luminous, enchanting cornerstone of the Czech New Wave is presented at Fantasia in a 4K restoration by the Czech National Archive (thanks to Janus Films). – Kat Ellinger
Showings
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Tiger Stripes
Amanda Nell Eu
The first of her friends to hit puberty, 12-year-old Zaffan must embrace the monster within. A delightful Malay-Muslim addition to the canon of feminist body horror!
Beauty and the Beast
Juraj Herz
A merchant's daughter is held prisoner by a mysterious winged beast .For this richly perverse re-telling of the original fairy tale Juraj Herz puts his own gothic stamp on Beauty and the Beast.
Mad Cats
Reiki Tsuno
After receiving a mysterious message containing clues to his missing brother’s whereabouts, Taka embarks on a quest that leads him to a gang of warrior women with extraordinary feline abilities.