In winning the Grand Prix at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival (IFFMH) in 1964, Jan Nemec’s drama Démanty noci (Diamonds of the Night) became the first Czechoslovak New Wave film to receive an internationally recognized award. The motion picture, based on a short story from the autobiographical book Darkness Casts No Shadow by Arnost Lustig, offers unusual and intensely attitudinal insight into the topic of war and resilience pushed to its limits. It tells the story of two young Jewish men who escape from a train taking them to their death. The film amounts to a naturalistic study of endangerment, repudiation, and uprootedness. The experiences of the desperate refugees in the Sudetenland forest merge with the memories, dreams, and visions of one of the men. Thus, the anatomy of a tortured human soul is projected into the sphere of existential drama. 

More than five decades after its premiere, the film received renewed international recognition when a remastered version, prepared by the Czech National Film Archive, was selected for the prestigious Cannes Classics section of the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, alongside restorations of landmark films such as Vertigo and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Join YIVO for a screening of this film followed by a panel discussion with Jonathan Brent, Eva Lustigová, Emily Tamkin, and Michael Feldman.

This event forms part of FestivAL100, an international celebration marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of the writer, journalist, screenwriter, and Holocaust witness Arnošt Lustig.

Watch the trailer: