PanelStory, or How a Housing Development is Born
Southeast Asian Premiere
Věra Chytilová Czechoslovakia 1979 101 min
A curious old man weaves his way through a labyrinthine housing estate. Through a dizzying exploration of neighbourly happenings in a public housing complex near Prague, the film forms an allegory for the complex dynamics of community-building.
A mosaic of characters inhabit the gritty buildings in a Prague housing development. The flats are half-completed with poor plumbing and shoddy walls, while construction debris litter the unfinished estate. An elderly newcomer arrives from the countryside to move in with his daughter’s family; he roams the unmarked blocks to find the right building, chatting with strangers along the way. A young woman nearby discovers her friend’s home life is less enviable than it looks, and a boy slips out of kindergarten hoping to meet his father. Amid the chaos, residents improvise their own domestic lives.
Chytilová’s handheld camera tracks all the happenings with anxious immediacy, set against Jiří Šust’s score that lurches between dissonant strings. Small acts of kindness peek through undulating crises, all while the promise of a finished home looms.
Synopsis Writer: Ryan Pagdanganan
Landmark, Q&A
31 Oct, Sat 11:00AM / 101 min
Oldham Theatre
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PanelStory, or How a Housing Development is Born
Panelstory, aneb jak se rodí sídliště
Věra Chytilová
Czechoslovakia
1979
Czech
English
101 min
Southeast Asian Premiere
Věra Chytilová
Věra Chytilová was a Czech avant-garde filmmaker who often made films dissecting social norms. She is known for the controversial Daisies (1966), which was banned in her home country, Wolf’s Hole (1987) and Fruit of Paradise (1970). This digitally restored version of Panelstory or Birth of a Community premiered at Berlinale Classics.
Lukáš Bech,
Antonín Vaňha,
Eva Kačírková
Filmové studio Barrandov