At the turn of 1979 and 1980, two films were made at FAMU based on the same theme by Vladimír Poštulka: AEIOU by Dušan Koukal and Martin Bezouška and Eugene Among Us: by Petr Nýdrle and Martin Vadas. They caused the same stir as Vlastimil Venclík’s The Uninvited Guest a decade earlier.

These two students managed to make their films at the Department of Scriptwriting and Photography completely outside the control of the Department of Directing led by Jiří Sequens. Both films criticise the socialist regime and speak about young people who are forced to abandon all their ambitions as they enter real life.

The faculty refused to release these films. Jiří Sequens wrote a devastating report on Eugene Among Us: “The film oscillates on the borderline of triviality, bad taste, absence of student intelligence and any ethical or aesthetic standards; it questions creative activities in a socialist state.” Ludvík Ráža, a lecturer at the Department of Directing, described both films as anti-socialist.

Luckily for the two students, their films did not have the same consequences as in the case of Vlastimil Venclík who was expelled from school shortly before graduation.

This year’s Summer Film School will offer a unique opportunity to see both films and discuss them with their authors. And we will also get to the late 1980s, before the beginning of the Velvet Revolution.